UFC Payouts: Song Yadong vs Ricky Simon With Lower Prize Money

The Ultimate Fighting Championship is back again and we are here for it. After an eventful Fight Night last week that gave us unexpected thrills, we think that this one will not disappoint either, one way or another. The main event was changed last minute, and two more fights got canceled. What's next? Here are the UFC payouts for the remaining fighters from the UFC Vegas 72 card.

We saw some huge UFC payouts last week – after all, Pavlovich and Blaydes are experienced fighters that get paid a lot of money. This week – the UFC Vegas 72 prize money is expected to be far lower in total.

After we lost the original main event – Renato Moicano vs Arman Tsarukya, which was going to be a real gladiator battle, we now have Song Yadong vs Ricky Simon. Perhaps this one will not attract the same attention, perhaps it will. What matters for us right now is that the UFC fighter pays will be quite different.

Song and Simon are too far down in the rankings to get the usual main event UFC payouts. How much are they expected to earn from this bout?

There is 𝑬𝑿𝑷𝑳𝑶𝑺𝑰𝑽𝑬 power in @SongYadongLFG's hands 💥👀

[ #UFCVegas72 | Saturday | Main Card 7pmET on @ESPNPlus ] pic.twitter.com/rpwbbTOsVT

— UFC (@ufc) April 27, 2023

Song Yadong Should Receive the Biggest UFC Fighter Pay

Song Yadong vs Ricky Simon is a fight that deserves our attention. Song has become a fan-favorite over the last few years due to his incredible skill set, the respect he has for his opponents, and the fact that he never refuses a fight. But he has not yet reached the level of UFC fighter pay that he probably hopes for.

Song Yadong last fought last year and met Cory Sandhagen in a highly entertaining bout. He lost that match and if you ask us, he was very underpaid. While his opponent wrapped up a total of $311,000, Song did not even reach the $100,000.

Cory Sandhagen had a base salary of $150,000 while Song Yadong was paid just $80,000 to show up. This time, he may get around a $100k for this main event bout but we definitely do not expect a higher quota. Which is quite unfortunate, if you ask us.

Ricky Simon Will Be Paid Even Less

While we expect around a hundred thousand dollars for Song Yadong's corner, his opponent is probably going to receive a lot less than that. And to be fair, the available information about him is quite scarce. We were unable to find the UFC payouts from the most recent event he was involved in. But we found the exact figures from his fights before that.

Ricky Simon only fought once in 2022 and we found nothing about this fight. But for his previous bout in December 2021, he was paid $60,000 to show up. He doubled that amount with his win, so he got a total of $126,000 (plus sponsorship bonuses).

Given that he has not achieved much since then and has had a single fight, his UFC fighter pay should not be much higher now. There is no reason to increase the salary of a fighter that is mostly inactive despite being in the Top 10 of the division.

If he received $60,000 around a year ago, we do not expect him to get more than $75,000 – $80,000 for this fight.

UFC Vegas 72 Prize Money: Main Card Expectations

We said the same thing about the previous event in regards to the one before it – we do not expect the UFC payouts this week to be as high. Last week, we at least had some highly attractive fighters on the card. This time, we only have two ranked fighters in the 11-bout fight card – those in the main event.

Here are our expected UFC payouts based on the recent purses of the athletes.

• Song Yadong – guaranteed $100,000
• Ricky Simon – guaranteed $80,000
• Marcos Rogerio de Lima – guaranteed $75,000
• Julian Erosa – guaranteed $60,000
• Michal Oleksiejzcuk – guaranteed $50,000
• Caio Borralho – guaranteed $40,000
• Rodolfo Vieira – guaranteed $26,000
• Cody Brundage – guaranteed $12,000
• Waldo Cortes Acosta – guaranteed $10,000
• Josh Quinlan – guaranteed $10,000

If you take a look at the names above and then compare them to the UFC Vegas 72 fight card, you will see that our list is not exactly in order. It is curious but some fighters from the earlier main card fights get paid several times more than those above them. And that is due to experience.

Marcos Rogerio de Lima is a UFC veteran and he has 30+ fights – he will get paid a lot more than the fighters in the co-main event, for example. There are also debutants in the main card and we found no information about their previous purses. Overall, the official UFC payouts will probably be quite different after the event.