UFC fighters eyeing up Bellator for bigger paychecks

When we hear about salaries in the UFC we just assume that it is the top spot for earnings in the MMA world. If you look at the top guys, this is true and Bellator, Pride, and others can't possibly compete with the million dollar purses that the top fights in UFC offers. However, if you look a bit further you will see that this big payday is the exception, not the rule. Most of the fighters in UFC probably make less money than you do. In many cases the lower level fighters actually claim to be losing money after they pay their training camp as well as their living and travel expenses.

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_{Welsh fighter Bret Johns is the latest in a string of fighters opting to move to Bellator}

A major part of the reason why UFC fighters are unable to make decent money is because they are no longer allowed to pursue their own sponsors as Reebok is the ONLY sponsor allowed on the fighters. You may also recall years ago that each fighter was able to put a poster behind them during weigh-ins and during fight announcements of the sponsors they had sorted out on their own.

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This sponsorship would extend to the fighter's clothing that they wear on their way to the octagon and also paid appearances at events for those companies around the country. Now, for the most part, that is completely banned in UFC unless it is for Reebok. How much money each fighter receives from Reebok seems to be based on the fighter's popularity or notoriety and this is why we see fighters cutting promos and creating as much controversy around themselves as possible. If you are louder, you get more Reebok money apparently.

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Take for example the fight purses from UFC Vegas 26. Those numbers look pretty good right? Well that is until you look at the 3 people on this page that made $20,000 for their respective fights. $20,000 seems like a ton of money to make in 15 minutes or less and if that is the impression someone is getting, they are missing the bigger picture here.

Their training camps are very expensive and many fighters are selected by certain camps and they train them for free but this comes at a cost as a certain percentage of all winnings are owed to the camp. Also, these figures do not take into account various deductions such as insurance and of course, taxes. You also need to keep in mind that outside of outliers like Cowboy Cerrone who seems to fight every couple of weeks for some reason, most fighters will only get something like 3 fights a year.

So after we do some brainstorming maths we can estimate that the lower-level fighters in UFC are probably making about as much money as an assistant manager at a McDonalds - if that. They also are punishing their bodies and the world is yet to find out the long-term repercussions of the continued battering that these athletes endure over years of being repeatedly concussed.

Before leaving UFC Brett Johns had commented that in his first 4 UFC fights, he had his nose broken in 3 of them. There are other fighters who have suffered much worse. When Brett Johns' contract expired he was 5-2, a good record for anyone really yet he had discovered that several fighters in his own weight division with worse records than him (this is public information) were making 20 to 100 thousand dollars a year more than him. I am sure that UFC has their reasons for this and your own agent certainly plays a part but in the end Johns has decided to make his way over to Bellator where he will be able to have more control over how much money he makes.

In Bellator, the fighters are allowed to pursue their own sponsors so for most undercard fighters it makes more sense financially to be involved in that promotion since like in most professional sports, sponsorship deals can actually be much more lucrative than the fight purses themselves.

I wouldn't say that UFC is abusing their fighters, but for the lower-level guys it kind of makes sense to go over there and make money the way that UFC fighters used to be able to. Then, if you rise to the top, you can come back to UFC later once you have proven your mettle and get the big bucks (provided there are no hard feeling, as there almost certainly will be towards Johns since he made this public.)

We all have this impression that UFC fighters simply live in the lap of luxury but for most of them, particularly the guys and girls outside of the top ten, they are likely making a lot less than you think they are.