UFC 139 salaries: Le ($350K) and Henderson ($250K) top fighter payroll

by MMAjunkie.com Staff on Nov 21, 2011 at 9:10 pm ET

Cung Le, Dan Henderson, Wanderlei Silva and Mauricio "Shogun" Rua were the top earners at this past weekend's UFC 139 event.

Overall, the 24 fighters competing on the card earned purses totaling $1,524,000.

www.mmajunkie.com recently requested and received the list of disclosed paydays from the California State Athletic Commission.

UFC 139 took place this past Saturday, Nov. 19, at HP Pavilion in San Jose, Calif. The night's main card aired on pay-per-view, and the preliminary card aired on Spike TV and streamed on Facebook.

The full payouts included:

Dan Henderson: $250,000 (no win bonus)
def. Mauricio Rua: $165,000

Wanderlei Silva: $200,000 (no win bonus)
def. Cung Le: $350,000

Urijah Faber: $64,000 (includes $32,000 win bonus)
def. Brian Bowles: $19,000

Martin Kampmann: $58,000 (includes $29,000 win bonus)
def. Rick Story: $19,000

Stephan Bonnar: $68,000 (includes $34,000 win bonus)
def. Kyle Kingsbury: $10,000

Ryan Bader: $48,000 (includes $24,00 win bonus)
def. Jason Brilz: $13,000

Michael McDonald: $14,000 (includes $7,000 win bonus)
Alex Soto: $6,000

Chris Weidman: $24,000 (includes $12,000 win bonus)
def. Tom Lawlor: $12,000

Gleison Tibau: $34,000 (includes $17,000 win bonus)
def. Rafael Dos Anjos: $16,000

Miguel Torres: $60,400 (includes $30,000 win bonus)*
def. Nick Pace: $3,200*

Seth Baczynski: $16,000 (includes $8,000 win bonus)
def. Matt Brown: $12,000

Danny Castillo: $34,800 (includes $17,000 win bonus)#
def. Shamar Bailey: $6,400#

* - Pace was fined $800 for being overweight; $400 was awarded to Torres and $400 was given to the CSAC
# - Bailey was fined $1,600 for being overweight; $800 was awarded to Castillo and $800 was given to the CSAC

Now, the usual disclaimer: The figures do not include deductions for items such as insurance, licenses and taxes. Additionally, the figures do not include money paid by sponsors, which can oftentimes be a substantial portion of a fighter's income. They also do not include any other "locker room" or special bonuses the UFC oftentimes pays. They also do not include portions of the pay-per-view revenue that some top-level fighters receive.

For example, as previously reported, UFC officials handed out additional $70,000 UFC 139 bonuses to McDonald ("KO of the Night"), Faber ("Submission of the Night"), and Henderson, Rua, Silva and Le ("Fight of the Night").

In other words, the above figures are simply base salaries reported to the commission and do not reflect entire compensation packages for the event.