Jake Paul’s MVP and Ronda Rousey aren’t just talking trash about UFC’s pay structure, they’re countering it by paying their own athletes much better … even those at the very bottom of the card.
MVP MMA 1 on May 16th features Ronda Rousey vs. Gina Carano, Francis Ngannou vs. Philipe Lins, and Nate Diaz vs. Mike Perry. All six fighters headlining in the ‘triple header’ are undoubtedly getting paid big bucks, but what about those further down the card? While MVP did a good job of stacking things, there’s still four fights on the card with smaller names. According to Ronda Rousey, who is acting as co-promoter as well as headliner for the event, they’re all gonna make at least $40,000 each.
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“I think it’s really important that we raise the ceiling, but also that we raise the floor,” Rousey said at the MVP MMA 1 press conference. “And one thing that is really important in this fight is the absolute minimum that anybody will walk away with — even if they don’t have a big, long record and even if they lose — is $40K.”
“If you fight three times in a year, that’s much more than a living wage, and that’s something the UFC cannot say.”
The UFC famously still pays fighters entering their organization $10,000 to show and $10,000 to win. Even if you fight twice and win both over your first year in the UFC, that’s $40,000 before taxes and expenses and gym / management fees. As Sean Strickland has said, you’d make more working at Wal-Mart. And that’s how it’s been locked in since 2015, when the entry level pay stopped going up every couple of years.
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MVP MMA fighters will make at least $40,000 per fight. Many of them make much more, and several at the top of the card have said they’re making more than they’ve ever made in their career.
“I hope that everybody sitting here is getting the biggest payday of their career,” Rousey said. “And after this event, I hope we can raise that ceiling higher and higher and higher, until it is on par with the highest-level boxers, because that is where the holy grail for us is. This is just the beginning.”
