The California State Athletic Commission (CSAC) released official fighter payout for Strikeforce Evolution, last Saturday. Cung Le eclipsed the list with a 150k payout in his loss to Scott Smith. King Mo pulled in 20k but will loss 10 percent of that after being fined by the CSAC for splashing Rockstar energy drink all over the cage following his win against Mike Whitehead.
Scott Smith: $55,000 (no win bonus)
def. Cung Le via: $150,000Gilbert Melendez: $55,000 (no win bonus)
def. Josh Thomson: $30,000Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza: $65,000 (includes $10,000 win bonus)
def. Matt Linland: $50,000Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal: $20,000 ($10,000 win bonus)
def. Mike Whitehead: $30,000Antwain Britt: $10,000 ($5,000 win bonus)
def. Scott Lighty: $5,000Justin Wilcox: $5,000 (no win bonus)
def. Daisuke Nakamura: $200Alex Crispim: $4,000 ($2,000 win bonus)
def. A.J. Fonseca: $2,000[via MMAJunkie]
Totals
Total Payout: $481,200
Total Attendance: 14,749 fans
Total Live Gate: $633,675
Who says you can make money in MMA.
They seem to pay pretty well. You can't tell me Scott Smith would make anything near $55 K in the UFC.
Here's your $200, Merry Christmas. Dont go spending that all at once now.
Why keep bashing promoters for their payouts. It started a few years ago with UFC, as soon as it became slighty popular everyone was on the bandwagon, quick to hate on them not paying fighters enough.
In my opinion its just smart business, somepromoters come in making a big deal out of the pay scale and say they are going to pay fighters 'what the deserve', and look what happened to them (Affliction, Elite XC).
I would hate to see Strikeforce go down that route. Scott Coker has worked really hard to get them in a position where they are now recognised as one of the top Promotions.
Just 4 years ago the average undercard fighter on a UFC PPV got $1000 – $3000, There is a guy who lives in my area who has had one fight inside the UFC at UFC 89 in Birmingham, he lasted 1 minute against Shane Carwin and got paid $10,000 (not sure how much Carwin earned, but im guessing it was about the same).
All im saying is, if you work hard the rewards will come, Strikeforce could probably have paid the fighters a little more, but then how long would it be before the money ran out and they had to find new jobs?