Poor Gegard Mousasi

Mixed Martial Art's pay scales between two fighters competing are sometimes vastly irregular, with the more accomplished or popular fighter sometimes earning a lot more then his opponent.This is apparent in a lot of fights in MMA organizations, both the UFC and outside of it.

For example, in UFC 100 Brock Lesnar with only several fights under his belt, defended his just acquired heavyweight title belt against Frank Mir and won. His pay for the evening was estimated to be around 400, 000, while Mir's was a sad 45,000. These situations happen all the time and I feel less inclined to react just because I still feel like 45 grand for 10 minutes time is good money, and most athletes agree with this (ask Forrest Griffin)

Then after StrikeForce had its event last weekend, I saw the salaries for the fighters. I wasn't surprised that the pretty poster girl of women's MMA, Gina Carano got 125,000 to get her face beat in by that crazy thing called Cyborg, while she only got 25 grand for a 1st round TKO stoppage.

The most surprising still was when I went farther down and discovered the Gegard Mousasi - Renato Sobral fight. In case you missed it, Mousasi destroyed him without even breaking a sweat in the 1st round. Sobral the more popular well known fighter got a cool 75 grand to heal his post fight headache, while Mousasi, the impressive victor only received 2,000!

Disparities between fighter salaries is not new, but that is a ridiculous amount to be paid. Fighter salaries are worked out before fights im sure, but if i ran an MMA organization like StrikeForce and saw my chump change fighter destroy the much higher paid Sobral like that, I would be embarrassed, and apologetic.

No wonder Mousasi did'int look that excited when he beat down Sobral, he probably knew he was getting the monetary equivalent of a high five.