MMA

CM Punk Made a LOT of Money for His Awful UFC 203 Fight (and Real Fighters Are LIVID)

MMA


CM Punk’s fight at UFC 203 was really, really bad. It was REALLY bad, you guys. Like…so bad. Like really bad. Punk faced the 2-0 Mickey Gall and was taken down effortlessly, pounded with punches and submitted in just two minutes.




It was an ugly fight that he lost in brutal fashion. He was beaten, bloodied, embarrassed and out-classed in every conceivable way.

And BOY did he make a lot of money for it!

CM Punk and Ted Dibiase, also known as the Million Dollar Man, will have a bit more in common after Punk's UFC 203 check clears. Photo by WWE.

CM Punk and Ted Dibiase, also known as the Million Dollar Man, will have a bit more in common after Punk’s UFC 203 check clears. Photo by WWE.

The disclosed payouts for the UFC 203 event came out on Monday morning and Punk pocketed a minimum of $500,000 USD, even in defeat.That’s a MASSIVE amount of money by MMA standards. How massive, you ask? Well, here’s the full list of payouts for the card:

Main Card (Pay-per-view)
Stipe Miocic ($600,000 + no win bonus = $600,000) def. Alistair Overeem ($800,000)
Fabricio Werdum ($250,000 + $125,000 = $375,000) def. Travis Browne ($120,000)
Mickey Gall ($15,000 + $15,000 = $30,000) def. CM Punk ($500,000)
Jimmie Rivera ($24,000 + $24,000 = $48,000) def. Urijah Faber ($160,000)
Jessica Andrade ($23,000 + $23,000 = $46,000) def. Joanne Calderwood ($25,000)

Preliminary Card (FOX Sports 1)
Bethe Correia ($25,000 + $25,000 = $50,000) def. Jessica Eye ($25,000)
Brad Tavares ($28,000 + $28,000 = $56,000) def. Caio Magalhaes ($20,000)
Nik Lentz ($38,000 + $38,000 = $76,000) def. Michael McBride ($12,000)
Drew Dober ($19,000 + $19,000 = $38,000) def. Jason Gonzales ($10,000)

Preliminary Card (UFC Fight Pass)
Yancy Medeiros ($24,000 + $24,000 = $48,000) def. Sean Spencer ($17,000)

CM Punk actually made a fair bit more money than former UFC heavyweight champion Fabricio Werdum...and Werdum actually won his fight!

CM Punk actually made a fair bit more money than former UFC heavyweight champion Fabricio Werdum…and Werdum actually won his fight!

Punk was actually the third-highest paid on the card in terms of disclosed money, earning $500,000. He earned less than both halves of the main event fight between Stipe Miocic and Alistair Overeem, but earned way more than former champions Fabricio Werdum and Urijah Faber and actually earned TEN TIMES MORE than former women’s bantamweight title contender Bethe Correia, who helped produce one of the most lucrative pay-per-views in UFC history at UFC 190.

Oh, and by the way? CM Punk almost certainly made more than that. “Disclosed pay” only covers the UFC’s guaranteed show money and win bonus. All signs and chatter point to CM Punk having made a cut of the pay-per-view revenue and, with rumors spreading that the buyrates were between 600,000 and 700,000 buys, that means that Punk very easily could have made an upwards of $2 million USD, maybe more, and maybe significantly more, depending on what his contract looked like. Not bad at all for two minutes of work!

CM Punk may have caught a beating, but the fact that he made a cool seven figures for it probably helps things. Photo by Barstool Sports.

CM Punk may have caught a beating, but the fact that he made a cool seven figures for it probably helps things. Photo by Barstool Sports.

Of course, as we saw with Sage Northcutt earlier this year, fighters making a good chunk of change for an embarrassing loss will inevitably lead to a MASSIVE amount of mud-slinging on social media. Lots and LOTS of fighters took to Twitter to rub salt in Punk’s wounds:

 

Of course, that’s a little bit silly. Even though Punk was a fraud of a fighter who shouldn’t have competed in the cage, he helped everyone on that card get attention, and helped make anyone else getting PPV points mucho dinero at UFC 203. Werdum vs. Miocic at UFC 198 drew less than 300,000 buys so if the rumors are true that this one more than doubled it, the CM Punk experiment was a whopping success for the UFC.


Page 1 of 1: