The Virginia Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation has released the salary information for all of the fighters who competed on the UFC on Fuel TV 3: Korean Zombie vs. Poirier fight card, which took place at the Patriot Center in Fairfax, VA.
Donald Cerrone and Amir Sadollah were revealed to have been sent home with the biggest paychecks from that night, earning $60,000 and $48,000, respectively. Cerrone got back in the win column after suffering a tough-to-swallow unanimous decision loss to Nate Diaz late last year by beating down Jeremy Stephens for three rounds to earn his own unanimous decision win. Sadollah faced Wanderlei Silva protege Jorge Lopez in the night’s co-main event and struggled through to earn a split decision win.
In the night’s main event, Chan Sung Jung took Dustin Poirier with a D’Arce choke in the fourth round of a wild fight. The win likely earned Jung a shot at the championship.
Take a look at all of the fighters’ base salaries below (props to MMAJunkie):
Chan Sung Jung ($17K + $17K win bonus = $34K) defeated Dustin Poirier ($14K)
Amir Sadollah ($24K + $24K win bonus = $48K) defeated Jorge Lopez ($6K)
Donald Cerrone ($30K + $30K win bonus = $60K) defeated Jeremy Stephens ($24K)
Yves Jabouin ($10K + $10K win bonus = $20K) defeated Jeff Hougland ($8K)
Igor Pokrajac ($17K + $17K win bonus = $34K) defeated Fabio Maldonado ($11K)
Tom Lawlor (12K + $12K win bonus = $24K) defeated Jason MacDonald ($19K)
Brad Tavares ($10K + $10K win bonus = $20K) defeated Dongi Yang ($12K)
Cody McKenzie ($10K + $10K win bonus = $20K) defeated Marcus LeVesseur ($6K)
T.J. Grant ($15K + $15K win bonus = $30K) defeated Carlo Prater ($10K)
Rafael dos Anjos ($16K $16K win bonus = $32K) defeated Kamal Shalorus ($11K)
Johnny Eduardo ($6K + $6K win bonus = $12K) defeated Jeff Curran ($8K)
Francisco Rivera ($6K + $6K win bonus = $12K) defeated Alex Soto ($6K)
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Add the 40k “fight of the night” and 40k “sub of the night” bonuses for zombie and that puts him at over 100k for this fight. The dude cashed in big! Well deserved too!
Ya I’m real glad he did too, totally deserted it. Hard to believe he was only guaranteed 30k with as much draw as he has to UFC. Even worse is poirier, who is one of the most exciting fighters and a top 5 bw in the planet is only guaranteed 14k. The bw class has to account for at least some kind of decent percentage of the UFCs billion dollar business (I’d say 10-20 million a year in revenue as a total and not too untenable guess), but yet one of their top 5 guys is guaranteed 14k for what was once likely a title eliminator fight lol. I love the UFC but these fighters will eventually get a union. The UFC sure does know how to make that money though!
devin,
I hear what you’re saying, this has been said a lot on the Frenzy before, the thing to remember is that he got paid what was in his contract, the same amount he agreed to fight for. Contracts don’t (as far as I know) take in to consideration future popularity, unless of course they get a % of ppv draw. I’m sure with Jung’s popularity rising over his last 4-5 fights when the time comes to renew his contract he will make more $.
I’m a big Zombie fan and I was super impressed with his performance against Poirier, who was a 2.5 to 1 favorite.
@newfie
That a good point. I just think the overall contracts are a fraction of what they should be. But that’s up for the fighters to hammer out when they come to UFC or resign.