Ultimate Fighter 4 Finale Payroll

From MMAWeekly.com


-Matt Serra: $110,000 (defeated Chris Lytle)
-Travis Lutter: $110,000 (defeated Patrick Cote)
-Chris Lytle: $10,000 (lost to Matt Serra)
-Patrick Cote: $10,000 (lost to Travis Lutter)
-Jorge Rivera: $20,000 (defeated Edwin Dewees)
-Din Thomas: $20,000 (defeated Rich Clementi)
-Edwin Dewees: $10,000 (lost to Jorge Rivera)
-Rich Clementi: $10,000 (lost to Din Thomas)
-Scott Smith: $20,000 (defeated Pete Sell)
-Pete Spratt: $20,000 (defeated Jeremy Jackson)
-Charles McCarthy: $20,000 (defeated Gideon Ray)
-Martin Kampmann: $15,000 (defeated Thales Leites)
-Jeremy Jackson: $10,000 (lost to Pete Spratt)
-Pete Sell: $10,000 (lost to Scott Smith)
-Gideon Ray: $10,000 (lost to Charles McCarthy)
-Thales Leites: $3,000 (lost to Martin Kampmann)

Disclosed Fighter Payroll for Ultimate Fighter 4 Finale: $408,000


Now this is what I'm talking about. Besides Leites and Kampmann, it looks like every fighter got paid 10k to fight, 10k to win (or for the TUF winners, 100k to win). For comparisons sake, I'm pretty sure the old formula was 5k to fight, 5k to win, with the TUF winners getting a 3 year, 9 fight contract worth 90k (more if they win). So they doubled the pay for the fighters, and gave winners the "six figures" up front. Much Much better.

The real question to me, though, is whether this is because of Pride's entering the American arena, forcing UFC to up their pay or face losing fighters much more easily, or if it's just because all the fighters on TUF4 had already fought in the UFC previously, and Dana felt they deserved more as such (rather than throwing out "big" money on fighters who haven't proven themselves at all in the octagon yet).