Originally Posted by kane

I was actually going to add to my post that the fighters make as much or more from their sponsorships than they do from the actual pay they get from the UFC for the fight. The elite guys get paid, but it is nothing even close to what the elite guys get in boxing. I think most people would agree that Anderson Silva is the best pound for pound MMA fighter in the world. If he isn't the best he is clearly one of the top 2 or 3 best. In his last fight he made $200K which was less than his opponent. In his previous fight before that he got $200K. Again, this doesn't include his sponsorship or any backroom bonuses, but it is chump change compared to what an elite boxer gets. Top boxers who are champs defending their belts regularly make 1-4 million or more. I read that Klitschko made around $5-$10 million in his last fight alone. These guys also have sponsorship deals, gyms and other endorsements and often have contracts that pay more if they win etc.

I'm not saying that the UFC guys can't make good money. Some of them clearly can and if they are smart and invest it in other things they can set themselves up for life, but most of the guys don't get paid worth a shit especially compared to what is actually brought in. UFC 132 had a total fighter payroll of around $1.3 million. It has ticket sales of $2.3 million, sold somewhere between 350,000- 375,000 pay per view buys and aired parts of the card on Spike TV and Facebook. The PPV at $50 each brought in $18 million (obviously they don't get every penny of that, but even if they actually get half of that - which I'm sure they get plenty more than half that is still $9 million) add in the revenue from spike and Facebook and you have the fighters likely getting somewhere between 5-10% of the total revenue.

Today the UFC is bigger and more popular than ever before so fighters have more chances to capitalize on their name outside the ring, but that has only recently become the reality. I think it is why we see a lot of older guys still hanging out trying to get a payday. For every Wanderlai Silva who has a nice gym and likely has a sweet bank account and could retire when he wants and be comfortable for the rest of his life there are likely 10 Mark Kerr's who end up broke and fighting for pennies with bodies that are wrecked. Boxing does the same, for sure, but to me it seems like the potential upside to boxing is that if you do make it to the top you can be in an instant millionaire. In the UFC when you are at the top not so much.

Just my 2 cents as an outsider and fan looking in.