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Cannonier vs Imavov Purse: Louisville Will Make Them Rich

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Like it or not, the main event of UFC Louisville is likely to last all five rounds. With 25 minutes to fight, the fighters must have a good salary, right? Here is everything we know about the Cannonier vs Imavov purse.

Cannonier vs Imavov Purse: Equal salaries for both?

Jared Cannonier is currently ranked fourth in the UFC middleweight rankings. Nassurdin Imavov is in eighth position. Apparently, the American is considered a slight favorite in the upcoming confrontation.

However, there are doubts about whether Cannonier can cope with the prospect from France. We already analyzed this bout and gave our prediction, now let's focus on the money side of the business.

Starting with Jared Cannonier, he has been here for a while. He joined the UFC in 2015 and his career has gone through ups and downs. He fought for the title in 2022 and then beat Sean Strickland and Marvin Vettori.

These massive fights are synonymous with big paydays and Cannonier definitely made good money. Apparently, he only got $250,000 when he faced Adesanya for the title. On paper, this is a good salary but what makes it weird are the reports that Jared made much more when he fought Strickland and Vettori.

Since it was a main event, Cannonier reportedly earned $400,000 as a base salary against the now-former champion Sean Strickland. We would argue that those numbers were exaggerated as normally, we see purses between $200-300k.

As for the fight against Marvin Vettori, there aren't any trustworthy reports. Cannonier certainly made close to that money again, especially after beating Strickland. Where does this lead us for the Cannonier vs Imavov purse?

We like to think that both fighters will make a considerable amount but it is hard to expect the $400k that outlets report regarding Cannonier. He is a high-earner and one of the best middleweights of the past decade. But we have to tune it down to around $300,000 for his guaranteed purse at UFC on ESPN 57.

As for his opponent, Nassourdine Imavov is also an interesting case. He last headlined a card in February 2024 when he faced Roman Dolidze and won via decision. But that is not important.

There is little information about his early payouts in the UFC but he has been getting more and more with every fight until he finally got to headline an event against Strickland. We know that he made around $150,000 for that fight. But the latest indications are that he earned a whopping $256,000 for his last bout against Dolidze in February.

And since he won it, there is a good chance that he will get some sort of increase for this one too. We do not think that there will be a huge gap in the percentages that the two get from the Cannonier vs Imavov purse. In fact, we expect it to be 50/50, thus both fighters should earn around $300,000 for this fight.

Of course, the winner of this fight will earn double as that's the usual practice for the main event bouts. One of the two will have his highest payday on Saturday.

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.