Yoel Romero leads Bellator 266 salaries with $150K payday despite loss

Yoel Romero made his Bellator MMA debut last Saturday night (Sept. 18, 2021) at Bellator 266 after his initial planned debut against Anthony Johnson earlier this year was scrapped. Despite coming up short against Phil Davis, getting shut out for 15 minutes (not 25), “Soldier of God” was the big winner in one category: salary.

The 44-year old wrestling phenom walked away with the biggest paycheck of the night after banking $150,000, which is $50,000 more than Davis — the former Light Heavyweight champion — who scored $50,000 less than the hulking-Cuban born fighter at $100K.

Here is the complete list of payouts courtesy of MMA Junkie:

Phil Davis $100,000 def. Yoel Romero $150,000
Neiman Gracie $100,000 def. Mark Lemminger $40,000
DeAnna Bennett $38,600 ($17,000 includes win bonus) def. Alejandra Lara $27,000 ($2,700 from Bennett’s purse for missing weight)
Saul Rogers $80,000 (includes$40,000 win bonus) def. Georgi Karakhanyan $35,000
Ben Parrish $20,000 def. Christian Edwards $30,000
Alex Polizzi: $36,000 (includes $18,000 win bonus) def. Grant Neal: $16,000
Anthony Adams: $40,000 ($20,000 win bonus) def. Khalid Murtazaliev: $33,000
Bobby Seronio III: $3,000 (includes $1,500 win bonus) def. Socrates Hernandez: $2,000
Abraham Vaesau: $6,000 (includes $3,000 win bonus) def. Albert Gonzales: $3,000
Shane Keefe: $3,000 (includes $1,5000 win bonus) def. Rhalan Gracie: $5,000
Edwin De Los Santos: $3,000 (includes $1,5000 win bonus) def. Jon Adams: $1,500
Jesse Delgado: $4,000 (includes $2,000 win bonus) def. Joshua Dillon: $2,000

In comparison, Romero banked $350,000 (no bonus) in his final fight for Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), a unanimous decision loss to Middleweight champion Israel Adesanya at UFC 248. Prior to that, “Soldier of God” earned $150,000 (no bonus) for his fight at UFC 241 against Paulo Costa, which also resulted in a loss for Romero.

Despite the defeat, Scott Coker said was still impressed enough with Romero to say that he will fight again for the Viacom-owned mixed martial arts (MMA) promotion.

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