-BJ Penn made 250,000 for his fight at 84. If he fought 4 times that year w/o Fight of the Night or KO/Sub bonuses he made $1 million dollars just in UFC salary.

-Tito Ortiz on the same card made 210,000 to LOSE to Lyoto Machida. If he LOSES 4 times in one year he made 840,000.

-Same with Rampage, 225,000 to lose to Forrest. And forrest made 250,000 to beat him.

If any of those that I mentioned above took home even a small cut of the PPV money for any of those cards. They made more for one event that I will over the next 4 years. And I make a decent amount of money.

Bottom line is that these guys aren’t poor. They get paid very well to fight. Alot of the undercard guys don’t get very much. But if you work hard and win some fights you can re-up for a whole lot more (just ask forrest).

Couture made a substantial amount of money in his last year with the UFC, and the UFC made a substantial amount of money off Randy. However, it was a mutually beneficial relationship. The UFC took Randy and made him a household name with TUF and his fights with Tito, Chuck, and Tim. In return, we tuned in to see Randy fight and entertain us on TUF.

Who is right in this arguement? Neither side is right, yet neither is wrong. Randy probably deserved to make a quite a bit more money that the UFC was paying him, without a doubt. HOWEVER Randy was under a contractual obligation to fulfill said contract, not “retire” then come back to fight in another org because he was unhappy.

Just my opinion on the matter.

If you examine the information you linked to:

Here were the highlights of the press conference:

- Couture did indeed receive a signing bonus with his new contract (contrary to his claim). The bonus totaled $500,000 — half of it was paid upon signing the contract and the other half was paid after his UFC 68 fight against Tim Sylvia.

- Couture was also paid a salary of $200,000 per year as a UFC employee in 2006 and 2007 as well as $56,000 per year for his commentating gigs for the promotion.

- At UFC 68, Couture’s purse was $250,000. His pay-per-view bonus was $936,000.

- At UFC 74, Couture’s purse was $250,000. His pay-per-view bonus is calculated as $787,000. And he received a $35,000 bonus for fight of the night.

- Mulkey estimated that Couture’s pay this year is just under $3 million to date.

I think it’s clear that Randy had such a good gig because he is one of the faces of the sport, not just because he fought good fights. In fact, he never had a purse larger than $250, 000. If you want to use Randy to prove all fighters are paid great by the UFC, consider that Randy Couture is a one-of-a-kind fighter and a huge PPV draw–maybe the biggest in the sport.

Maybe I was and am wrong and many fighters are paid like him, but that’s yet to be proven either way.

Responding to criticism from resigned champion Randy Couture that they underpaid fighters, Ultimate Fighting Championship executives Tuesday took the unprecedented step of publicly announcing what they’re paying the former heavyweight star this year: nearly $2.9 million.

“We pay our fighters very well,” UFC President Dana White said at a news conference in Las Vegas. “The statements [Couture] has made are not true.”

“Couture also claimed that he had talked with other fighters, and the approximately $250,000 plus a ppv percentage that he made per fight was nowhere near what they made. ”

and check this out

http://video.ufc.tv/Press_Doc.pdf

Now tell me that Chuck Liddell, Rampage, GSP, Tito (while he was there) and even Forrest now don’t get something similar.

Frankly, I don’t appriciate being called a liar.

2. As a fan of MMA I find that there is generally only one or two fights on the entire card that I could live without, and they’re generally relegated to the untelevised portion. The rest are often good matchups, and while not necessarily big names end up being good fights. Hazelett v. Burkman and Reljic v. Gouveia come to mind recently. They groom these kids for a reason, they’re gonna be monsters. Hazelett will own a belt someday, mark my words.

3. The UFC doesn’t offer scraps. Big name fighters make millions of dollars per year (some per fight). There are other underlying reasons for alot of big namers that won’t sign with the UFC. Fedor won’t because he requires the ability to fight in Sambo tournements, Dana White reportedly met his salary demands but would not let the Sambo fights happen. Barnett and Dana don’t get along at all and Josh wouldn’t sign and Dana wouldn’t offer. It’s a similar situation with Jeff Monson. Alot of these guys were in the UFC.

4. It seems to me that the UFC is head and shoulders above every other org. in terms of talent. They have roughly 200 fighters and about 40-50 of them are in the top 15 of their respective divisions. I personally enjoy the UFC much more than the other promotions right now. I think DREAM is doing a great job and while Affliction had it’s kinks they could be something special (if they can not hemmorage money). But I just can’t bring myself to put EXC in that group of “A” list promotions. No matter how hard they try they come off second rate to me.

5. We are in the midst of the best 3 month stretch of MMA EVER! I personally don’t think (from a fans perspective) that it can get much better for us.

Sorry for the long post, bad day at work and I needed to vent and ramble.

also you have to take the other promotions for what they are right now.
but i will tell you that they are coming and to you people that only watch the ufc open your eyes DREAM had a great tourny final a few weeks ago and all there shows have been solid
eddie alverez needed more support as the only USA fighter left and really would have won!!! but i saw nothing on this website about him and only one article about dream
all i want is the best and it has gotten better in the last couple years but we deserve more as fans