Whenever there is a good card, it also means that there will be solid salaries. And we have a stacked main card here. How much will the fighters earn? Here is what we know about the UFC Fight Night 237 payouts.
UFC Fighter Pay: What Will Moreno vs Royval Be Paid at UFC Fight Night 237?
While there will be numerous debutants and low-ranked fighters on this card, the main card is stacked and particularly the co-main and main events. Whenever you see the name of a former champion on a card, you expect to see big numbers but we have hardly ever seen record-breaking payouts in Flyweight.
As a two-time champion, Brandon Moreno has never been paid more than $500,000 as a guaranteed purse and that only happened in title bouts. There will be reductions here.
Brandon Moreno Career Earnings
You would be surprised to find that Brandon Moreno had to wait a while before he got his first significant payday. Even for his first title match in 2020 against Deiveson Figueiredo, he was paid just $100,000. His totals from that bout were $180,000 after the performance bonus and sponsorship money.
He earned the same amount for his second bout against Figueiredo but also got a $100,000 win bonus to make a total of $282,000. From then on, his purses increased almost every time he showed up for a fight.
In the third bout against Figueiredo, he was offered a guaranteed purse of $200,000. He lost but was entitled to a PPV share for the first time in his career, boosting his salary to a total of $642,000 for this match.
His win over Kai Kara-France in 2022 earned him $300,000 as a guaranteed purse and a total of $642,000 after the win bonus, performance bonus, and sponsorships.
He earned $500,000 as guaranteed purses for his last couple of bouts against Figueiredo (4th time) and Alexandre Pantoja, when he lost the title in 2023. In total, he earned $2,634,000 from his last two matches.
The question now is whether he will get paid that amount for a Fight Night main event. We doubt that Dana White would offer him $500,000 for a match that he had to agree to either way. Therefore, we expect the UFC Fight Night 237 payouts to be lower. Our predictions are for a reduction to $300,000 for Moreno.
The data regarding Royval’s career earnings is far more limited as he has not been performing at this high level for as long as his opponent. Moreno fought six championship bouts in a row since 2020.
Basically, we have information about a couple of his previous matches. Firstly, the first time he faced Brandon Moreno. We have every reason to believe that both Brandons got paid about $35,000 for their UFC 255 bout in November 2020. Since then, Royval had a bunch of solid matches until he reached the title match against Alexandre Pantoja in December 2023. Undoubtedly, he received an increase after every win during the last four years.
Based on the limited information that has been released so far, we have every reason to believe that Brandon Royval was paid about $150,000 for his title match against Pantoja. If he had won it, he would have received a huge percentage of the PPV share.
With this said, we expect him to earn about the same for this bout. There is no way they will pay him more for a non-championship fight.
UFC Payouts: What the Rest of the Card Can Expect
Needless to say, the UFC Fight Night 237 payouts include the entire card, not just the main event. While the information about lower-ranked fighters is always limited, we found some data that allows us to make confident predictions for several of the athletes.
With this said, we have to disclose that these are predictions based on the latest information about each fighter and their recent purses. The UFC is very strict about the release of data on the financial aspect of the sport and we typically have to wait for months to even get a glimpse at what certain fighters were paid.
Vlad is a former amateur MMA fighter. After a series of injuries, he found a different way to connect with the sport and its fanbase - through writing. He's been covering everything-UFC for over 5 years on various platforms and has been part of the team at NYFights since early 2022.
