UFC 248 salaries: Israel Adesanya takes home good chunk of total payout

Middleweight champion Israel Adesanya was the highest earner at UFC 248, taking home more than twice as much disclosed pay as the card’s other defending champ.

Adesanya (19-0 MMA, 8-0 UFC) made $500,000 with no win bonus for his main event title defense against challenger Yoel Romero (13-5 MMA, 9-4 UFC) on Saturday at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Romero made $350,000 in defeat.

The other defending champion on the card, Zhang Weili (21-1 MMA, 5-0 UFC) netted $200,000 for beating Joanna Jedrzejczyk (16-4 MMA, 10-4 UFC), who got $106,000 in the memorable title contest.

The total disclosed payroll for the event was $2.086 million.

Complete disclosed salaries for UFC 248:

Israel Adesanya: $500,000 (no win bonus)
def. Yoel Romero: $350,000
Zhang Weili: $200,000 (includes $100,000 win bonus)
def. Joanna Jedrzejczyk: $106,000
Beneil Dariush: $140,000 (includes $70,000 win bonus)
def. Drakkar Klose: $40,000
Neil Magny: $152,000 (includes $76,000 win bonus)
def. Li Jingliang: $64,000
Alex Oliveira: $128,000 (includes $64,000 win bonus)
def. Max Griffin: $35,000
Sean O’Malley: $70,000 (includes $35,000 win bonus)
def. Jose Quinonez: $33,000
Mark Madsen: $66,000 (includes $33,000 win bonus)
def. Austin Hubbard: $12,000
Rodolfo Vieira: $28,000 (includes $14,000 win bonus)
def. Saparbek Safarov: $22,000
Gerald Meerschaert: $60,000 (includes $30,000 win bonus)
def. Deron Winn: $12,000
Giga Chikadze: $24,000 (includes $12,000 win bonus)
def. Jamall Emmers: $10,000
Danaa Batgerel: $20,000 (includes $10,000 win bonus)
def. Guido Cannetti: $14,000

The figures do not include deductions for items such as insurance, licenses and taxes. Additionally, the figures do not include money paid by sponsors, including the official UFC 248 Promotional Guidelines Compliance pay. They also do not include any other “locker room” or special discretionary bonuses the UFC sometimes pays. They also do not include pay-per-view cuts that some top-level fighters receive.

For example, UFC officials handed out additional $50,000 UFC 248 fight-night bonuses to Dariush and O’Malley for “Performance of the Night,” and Weili and Jedrzejczyk for “Fight of the Night.”

In other words, the above figures are simply base salaries reported to the commission and do not reflect entire compensation packages for the event.