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Now retired former UFC welterweight Jorge Masvidal had one of the more surprising career arcs in MMA history. Already a well-seasoned, former Strikeforce title contender, ‘Gamebred’ first hit the Octagon back in 2013 with 30 pro fights to his name already. For the next five years he carved out a decent role as a mid-card action talent, always fun even if he didn’t always win.
A string of highlight victories in 2019, however shot the longtime ATT talent to stardom and to a pair of UFC title fights against Kamaru Usman. Suddenly Masvidal was getting liquor sponsorships, doing autograph signings, getting TV spots, and even ended up launching his own combat sports promotion. The man became a seriously big deal, making a whole ton of money both for himself and for the UFC along the way.
Jorge Masvidal put numbers to his UFC fame
So with all that newfound popularity, Masvidal got the chance to do some renegotiating with the UFC. Especially when it came down to fighting as a PPV headliner. Just how much money was the UFC willing to splash out on the Miami native? In a recent episode of Tyreek Hill’s It Needed To Be Said podcast, Masvidal revealed his highest UFC payday.
“From a fight?” Masvidal responded to a question about his biggest ever payday. “The most? I’d say right around five [million], total.”
“No, no no no,” he continued when asked if that included insurance. “So, the UFC takes care of us to an extent with medicals, right? So, if anything happens to you at the fight or in preparation for the fight, we’re very well taken care of. And even after the fight, anything that happens in the gym related, we’re very well taken care of. But we don’t have insurance outside of that, or like a dental plan. But, anything that happens related to fighting or training, they take care of.”
On the MMA pay scale, $5 million isn’t so bad. But it doesn’t look nearly so generous when considering what the UFC likely made off the event. Assuming this payday is from UFC 251, Masvidal’s first title shot against Kamaru Usman, that PPV sold 1.3 million buys at a price of $64.99 a buy. Meaning the event brought in a total of $84.5 million in PPV revenue alone. At the height of his drawing power, Gamebred got just 6% of PPV sales from the UFC (h/t MyOpinionIsSeen on Twitter).
What’s on the horizon for Jorge Masvidal
Now retired from MMA and the UFC, Masvidal has made it plain that his immediate future is wrapped up in being a fight promoter. His ‘Gamebred FC’ promotional brand has put together boxing, bare knuckle, and MMA cards with eight events already in their two years of operation. In a recent interview with Jake Paul, however Masvidal also revealed that he’d like to try his hand at boxing someday, if the right opportunity ever came along.
“Definitely would box,” Masvidal said when asked about a possible change of sport. “That’s something that I wanted to do, especially when I started progressing more in my skill set. And I have a pro boxing fight that took place like 14-15 years ago. Boxing was my first love. So, I would definitely do a boxing match, if the UFC would permit me. They have to give me permission. They’d have to be like, ‘Yeah, go do your thing.’ If not? Can’t do no boxing match.”
For now, it seems fans will just have to settle for seeing Masvidal do his work from the sidelines.
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