(Photo by Rey Del Rio/Getty Images)
I’ll tell you this right now: Sign. Me. Up. I mean, sh*t, I’ve gotten my ass kicked in regular life, let alone professionally for a boatload of money, so why the hell not?! That’s right, folks, CM Punk made half a million dollars for getting his ass beat for less than 120 seconds.
CM Punk, whose real name is Phil Brooks, submitted after just two minutes by young gun Mickey Gall at UFC 203, but still walked away with a girthy $500,000 paycheck. For all of my math majors out there, that’s over $4000 a mothaf*ckin’ second. In contract, Gall, the dude who beat the piss out of punk, only got $30,000 for his win. Seems like a sweet deal if you ask me.
For comparison, heavyweight headliners from UFC 203 Stipe Miocic and Alistair Overeem received similar purses. Miocic walked away with a $600,000 purse for his first-round knockout victory over Overeem, who received $800,000. Maybe even more outrageous is the fact that Punk’s purse was guaranteed, meaning Punk’s salary was a flat $500,000 fee: win, lose, or draw.
To Punk’s credit, at the end of the day, the UFC is a business. If you have the leverage to use that business to earn a handsome paycheck, so be it. Such is the nature of capitalism.
Needless to say, some UFC fighters were none too thrilled:
https://twitter.com/KelvinGastelum/status/775416473346977792
https://twitter.com/RdosAnjosMMA/status/775437538425135105
https://twitter.com/rory_macdonald/status/775387005773451265
https://twitter.com/FilthyTomLawlor/status/775382364922929153
https://twitter.com/criscyborg/status/775451080872210432
https://twitter.com/CatZingano/status/775513411169812480
Sorry, UFC fighters, but you need to get a grip and realize your beef is with Dana White, not Punk.
