(Image from mmafighting.com)
Although sporting and sports stars have typically been quite hush hush around the inner workings of their contracts in terms of the length of the deal and the payment terms of their deal, some sports have always been quite open with the information – a look at football for example has always shown player values, contact lengths, and some of the finer details. Other sports have even had bookies offer odds on some inner workings, with some of the best sports and racebooks like this tvg promo for example – but MMA has typically been a little more opaque on this front and only in recent years has it become less taboo to talk about, even if the officials and bosses like Dana White wish that wasn’t so. And in a recent interview, Georges St-Pierre has given a closer look at what his career had been like.
It’s not uncommon that new fighters pretty much appear for pennis, and Georges revealed that his debut fight at UFC 46 in 2004 was much of the same as he would earn a purse of $3,000 to show and $3,000 to win – with the costs of the training camp, the support team, and the months in between fights it’s no surprise that some fighters in the past have worked a second job whilst trying to get to the higher rankings just to support their fight habit. St-Pierre even wrote that later that year, in a fight against the then champ Matt Hughes he would receive just $9,000 to show during his loss via submission.
Just four years later, St-Pierre had managed to establish himself as one of the greatest 170-pound fighters, and a nod towards the G.O.A.T title that he still holds today, but at the time with his contract expiring had revealed that he had to essentially let his contract expire and state he didn’t want to re-sign to get preferential terms. Of course he was in the seat to do so, it’s difficult to imagine a fight lower down the rankings would receive the same treatment, and was offered better terms – St-Pierre even disputed the rumours that at the time he was making $400,000 per match, stating that he was instead making millions of dollars to not only show and win, but also from the pay-per-view buys and the gate ticket sales, something that is known today as other champs have stated that’s where the real money comes from.
It’s an interesting piece to read, St-Pierre has been critical in the past of the way the UFC pays its fighters having written pieces of it before and rounding out his piece by saying “The reality is most fighters finish broke and broken. They hang there too long. They get brain damage. They go broke” is a stark and realistic look at the fight game, and it comes as no surprise that so many only aim for the money fights, unwilling to put too much at risk.
