The sad truth about Roy Nelson

Roy was one of my favorites, I'd get a kick out of watching this fat guy rub his big belly after knocking out some big name in the cage,hahaha I still laugh thinking about him. The UFC should pay him a million bucks on general principal, because he was always there to bail out Dana White,and by the way,he should die in a flaming car crash .

Dana White and Joe Rogan have their nerve criticizing Oscar de la Hoya for only paying the long-retired Chuck Lidell $1,000.00 for a comeback loss when they only paid Roy Nelson $24,000.00 for wins against the best fighters in the U.F.C. Does Bellator release numbers? Big Country should be paid millions of dollars more than Connor McGregor.

The UFC pays their fighters garbage!!! They rip them off. Plain and simple and its disgusting. These men literally go to battle every night to entertain fans and make the UFC absolutely rich and what do they get for their troubles? Very low salaries. The income the UFC makes from events held are much more higher than what they pay the fighters. And every business is in business to make money but cmon, be somewhat fair. Most UFC fighters are being completely raped by Dana White (who is a multi millionaire) and the rest of the ownership at UFC. If Dana White is so rich then why doesn't a guy like Roy Nelson have at least a couple million dollars in earnings? Some events hes earned $16,000!!! lol what a joke. Dana White has a big mouth and he should be ashamed, aswell as his business partners. Until it is resolved and the fighters are paid more from the PPV dollars that come from guys like me, I will never buy another UFC PPV and ill make sure none of my friends do either.

Roy must have listened to you Jeremy E because he is now in Bellator.

Now they have him on the undercard of a fox card, wtf???? He gets to put up with all this bull because Dana doesn't like him. Big Country should go to Bellator

Dino, You hit the nail right on the head. The writer was not using verified data, he might have checked MMA Manifesto, a site that posts estimated payouts based on past numbers...so if the last verified pay for a fighter is two years old. they keep using it until something new comes along. The result is numbers that are not even close to reality. But mistakes do happen, it would be nice if the article author had the article pulled until he could rewrite it with the correct info.

So last nights event, and this is the first time his numbers have been publicly released since 2012. Nelson got $75k + $50k win bonus. Your numbers were way out. As said before, his numbers havnt been published for years. Maybe you took the numbers from a mmamania peice a while back that "guessed" at his numbers. But anyway, its official now, 75/50 last night.

I think MMA needs to really gain more viewers which results in more advertisers and more money.... the lowest NFL / MLB players (who just sit on the bench) make about $200k a year... the lowest UFC fighter makes about $10k a year (after 3 fights and some wins)... and then a cut of that goes to their coaches / team.

$87k a year isn't including taxes... so after taxes you're looking at $50k a year... and you're not looking at training. So roughly Roy is training (let's say he does 3 fights are year), he's going to be training for the fight for about 9 months (270+ days). With that $50k he needs to pay his bills, his camp, his coaches, his sparring partners, etc... (that should be about 40% of his purse)... so with the disclosed pay (not including any undisclosed pay) he currently earns $30k. In reality he probably makes maybe $50k - $60k a year with sponsorships, appearances, and undisclosed bonuses. He has maybe a year or two left to really make bank, but at this point he's going to be a tough retirement especially since he's taken a lot of damage.

So you know, Roy Nelson bought a ton of his Twitter followers. Approximately half of them are fakes

Alright Matthew. I enjoyed your article. I liked another fighter who's plight reminded me of Roy;s. I got a hold of Mark Hunt over Twitter where we talked off line in a conversation that led to talking about me finding him a well paying sponsorship deal (pre-Reebok). At the time Mark was circa a 500 MMA fighter. That experience educated me as to how difficult it is to gain aggressive earnings for fighters who don't have either the UFC's marketing investment behind them, or notoriety outside of MMA. As far as the POCs who I spoke to on Mark's behalf at Heinz, Hunt's ketchup, Coca-Cola, etc. were concerned though they didn't say as much, the UFC is MMA in customer's eyes and they weren't willing to risk the disassociation of their current customer base if an association with fighting provoked that response. To be fair demographic studies are not abundant for MMA fans, though we know who they are .It is as if Dana decides not only what he will pay fighters, but whether they will gain the exposure necessary to draw secondary income. I am going to try to reach Roy, and someone else to see if I can help him earn a little more. Short of Roy winning the title, the fans are the only ones are are going to help Roy earn bigger pay checks. It's worth noting that there are several perrenial #3 ish fighters who never win belts who are paid well. Thank you again. I enjoyed the article.

So why dont you post all these figures in your article then. breakdown by fight backing up the figures. ive not seen any publicly released figures of Roys since 2012. He keeps having fights in areas where they dont make the numbers public. So he didnt get a signing bonus then? If these numbers are so well known, then put them in the article, broken down by fight, you would be the first person to do so.. ;)

Where are you getting these figures from. His two fights in Japan and the one in Abu Dhabi do we know the declared salary from? That leaves only his fight against Reem, and the first fight of his new contract against Cormier. Theres absolutely no figures in this peice at all to back it up Also, what was his signing bonus, and what under the table payments has he recieved.

The UFC is 1 company. It's not the sport of MMA. It's a promotion. It can't just throw millions of dollars at every single fighter. Especially fighters who don't draw. If you follow any other sport, you'll know that there are huge mega-stars who make tens of millions of dollars, then there's everyone else. There are countless NFL and MLB players who make $200k a year. Not everybody is Lebron James. Most people aren't even close. Floyd Mayweather throws his own events. Mayweather Promotions is the same exact thing as the UFC. A fight promotion company. Roy could throw his own events if he wanted. Maybe Bellator would even offer him more money. You guys gotta stop putting so much faith in the UFC as the end all be all of MMA. Once a dude like Conor McGregor decides to go the Floyd Mayweather route and promote his own fights, it's going to change the game.

It's time for the real MMA fans to stand up and side w/the fighters. I'm not even going to the comparison of other professional athletes. We know the UFC is paying these guys shit. They all are underpaid especially the guys like Nick. Roy Nelson you are the Boss. I think back about Dana looking in the camera during that TUF episode basically calling Roy "stupid". So tell us Dana is he stupid or is he a company man that trusts the UFC to do the right thing? Sure it's up to Roy to "negotiate" his salary but I'm thinking it had less to do with being a "company man" and more to do with the UFC hedging they could take advantage of Roy. What was he going to say NO?? I don't know Roy but I'm guessing from what I do know that Roy sees the UFC as family. As friends. The only problem is the UFC sees Roy as a mark. I'm sick of it.