There’s good news for those fighters at the very bottom wrung of the UFC ladder this week as it’s been reported that the UFC is raising it’s minimum salary per fight.
According to writer Adam Martin an MMA manager has confirmed that the UFC is now paying fighters a minimum of $10,000 to show and a further $10,000 per win and that does appear to be reflected in the latest payout for UFC 187 with newcomers Islam Islam Makhachev and Leo Kuntz both on that scale.
There’s been no official confirmation from the UFC on this, but if it proves to be true then it’d give UFC newcomers a potential boost of $4,000 per fight compared to the previous salary floor of $8,000 / $8,000 which has been the case for the last couple of years.
It’s not a huge difference and there’s certainly still room for improvement, but it’ll no doubt be gratefully received nonetheless, particularly in the wake of the general unreset we’ve seen over the UFC’s recent uniform deal with Reebok which is set to reduce a number of fighters sponsorship earnings when it begins in July.
For the record, the UFC’s biggest rival Bellator still pays out as little as $1,000 / $1,000 per fight, while World Series Of Fighting manages to go lower still at $750 / $750.
In fact, in WSOF’s case, for their last event only the main and co-main event fighters earned more than the UFC’s new minimum wage.
