Likely payouts for 33 former UFC champions revealed from lawsuit documents

33 former UFC champions' full payouts have likely been uncovered in part 2 of Bloody Elbow's deep dive into lawsuit documents.

Through the UFC antitrust lawsuit documents that were unsealed, Bloody Elbow was previously able to reveal the likely full payouts given to several of the highest paid UFC stars such as Conor McGregor, Jon Jones, Ronda Rousey and others.

These previously unreleased figures would include total amount the UFC paid to their athletes for each fight, including any non-disclosed side deals and cut of the pay-per-view sales.

Bloody Elbow has since done a deeper dive into this “Internal Zuffa Bout Compensation” list and have identified more payouts for dozens of former UFC champions.

How did we figure out the likely payouts of all these UFC fighters?

As noted earlier, an appendix from the unsealed Roger D. Blair’s expert report had an “Internal Zuffa Bout Compensation” that listed the payouts to every UFC fighter from 2011 to 2016.

Individual fighter names weren’t listed, but the report does include how many bouts that fighter has had in the UFC at that point, along with how many fighters received such a payout. That alone made it easy to identify many of the top earners from the UFC.

For example, while it might be hard to identify one of the 4 fighters who were paid $27,000 for their 7th fight in the UFC in 2016, it’s easier to surmise that the outlying UFC debutant in 2016 with a $1,042,736 payout was CM Punk. Or that the only possible candidate for a fighter earning $4,374,326 in his 18th UFC fight in 2013 would have been Anderson Silva.

Combining information from disclosed purses from lawsuits, athletic commissions, along with some sources of Bloody Elbow’s business expert John Nash, we were able to make a fairly educated guess to identify the most likely purses for dozens more UFC champions.

It’s worth noting that while many of the biggest totals match our other sources, there could always be inaccuracies and human error involved in these sheets — like how Cain Velasquez’s payout for his 14th UFC fight was listed as the 15th bout instead.

That being said, here’s we saw after doing a deeper dive into the document.

Median UFC payout was $29,000 during class period

John S. Nash compiled some interesting statistics looking at the overall payouts from the entire class period.

From 2011-2016, there were 5004 total bout compensations.

Total compensation: $505,028,484

Lowest pay: $4,000 for one fighter on his third fight in 2011

Highest pay: $8,000,000 for Brock Lesnar in 2016

Mean Average: $100,925

Median Average: $29,000

Average UFC payouts per year

2011

600 total bout compensations

Total compensation: $65,315,210

Mean Average: $108,859

Median Average: $14,500

2012

682 total bout compensations

Total compensation: $59,996,307

Mean Average: $87,971

Median Average: $25,000

2013

773 total bout compensations

Total compensation: $82,064,874

Mean Average: $106,164

Median Average: $20,000

2014

1018 total bout compensations

Total compensation: $62,722,405

Mean Average: $61,613

Median Average: $25,000

2015

945 total bout compensations

Total compensation: $98,346,976

Mean Average: $104,071

Median Average: $29,000

2016

986 total bout compensations

Total compensation: $136,582,712

Mean Average: $138,522

Median Average: $36,000

Likely payouts for 33 former UFC champions

Heavyweight

Stipe Miocic

$125,000 vs. Junior dos Santos — Disclosed purse: $80,000 (30K+50K bonus)

$692,736 vs. Alistair Overeem — Disclosed purse: $650,000 (600K+50K bonus)

Cain Velasquez

$475,000 or $1,119,166 vs. Antonio Silva 2 — Disclosed purse: $400,000

$350,000 vs. Travis Browne — Disclosed purse: $350,000 ($300K+50K bonus)

Notes:

There seems to be a minor error on the sheet, listing this as the 15th fight for Cain, but should’ve been 14th.

Junior dos Santos

$450,000 or $762,251 vs. Cain Velasquez 2 — Disclosed purse: $400,000

$335,000 vs. Stipe Miocic — Disclosed purse: $310,000 (130K/130K+50K bonus)

Frank Mir

$400,000 or $475,000 vs. Roy Nelson — Disclosed purse: $250,000 (125K/125K)

$480,000 or $583,377 vs. Junior dos Santos — Disclosed purse: $200,000

$415,000 vs. Daniel Cormier — Disclosed purse: $200,000

$415,000 vs. Josh Barnett — Disclosed purse: $200,000

$415,000 vs. Alistair Overeem

$450,000 or $470,000 vs. Antonio Silva — Disclosed purse: $200,000

$475,000 vs. Todd Duffee — Disclosed purse: $250,000 (200K+50K bonus)

$110,000 vs. Andrei Arlovski

$400,000 vs. Mark Hunt

Andrei Arlovski

$225,000 vs. Frank Mir — Disclosed purse: $225,000

$250,000 or $260,000 vs. Stipe Miocic — Disclosed purse: $250,000

$275,000 vs. Alistair Overeem

Josh Barnett

$220,000 vs. Roy Nelson

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Light Heavyweight