UFC Rio/UFC 134 Fighter Salaries

It was good to be Brazilian at UFC Rio: Silva vs Okami.  The Rio crowd was roaring for their “hometown” heroes, Brazilians came out on top of 10 of their 11 bouts, and Brazilian fighters also went home with the biggest cheques.  The resurgent Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira was the top earner of the event, taking home a half a million for his shocking knockout of Brendan Schaub.

Before we go any further, we should note that the Athletic Commission in Rio doesn’t release fighter pay info, so none of the following salary data for the event is official.  However, you can get a fairly accurate picture of a fighter’s pay based on official purse info released from past fights.  So, based on that info, here is the estimated pay breakdown for the 24 fighters that traded blows at the event (but please remember – this is only an estimate, not official info, especially for any fighters that made their UFC debuts at the event).  These numbers obviously also don’t include any PPV revenue, undisclosed bonuses and/or sponsorship money any of these fighters may have made

Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira: $500,000 ($250,000 to show, $150,000 win bonus, $100,000 Knockout of the Night bonus)

Mauricio Rua: $230,000 ($160,000 to show, $70,000 win bonus)

Anderson Silva: $200,000

Forrest Griffin: $125,000

Ross Pearson: $120,000 ($20,000 to show, $100,000 Fight of the Night bonus)

Edson Barboza: $120,000 ($10,000 to show, $10,000 win bonus, $100,000 Fight of the Night bonus)

Thiago Tavares: $38,000 ($19,000 to show, $19,000 win bonus)

Paulo Thiago: $36,000 ($18,000 to show, $18,000 win bonus)

Raphael Assuncao: $30,000 ($15,000 to show, $15,000 win bonus)

Spencer Fisher: $26,000

Yushin Okami: $23,000

Dan Miller: $23,000

Luiz Cane: $19,000 

Rousimar Palhares: $14,000 ($7,000 to show, $7,000 win bonus)

Stanislav Nedkov: $12,000 ($6,000 to show, $6,000 win bonus)

Erick Silva: $12,000 ($6,000 to show, $6,000 win bonus)

Yuri Alcantara: $12,000 ($6,000 to show, $6,000 win bonus)

Yves Jabouin: $12,000 ($6,000 to show, $6,000 win bonus)

Brendan Schaub: $10,000

David Mitchell: $6,000

Johnny Eduardo: $6,000

Luis Ramos: $6,000

Felipe Arantes: $6,000

Ian Loveland: $6,000