Antonio Silva tops "EliteXC: Unfinished Business" official fighters salaries
Antonio Silva headlined the Showtime portion of the event, defeated Justin Eilers, picked up EliteXC's heavyweight title, and took home the night's biggest payday at this past Saturday's "EliteXC: Unfinished Business" event.
MMAjunkie.com (
www.mmajunkie.com) today obtained Silva's and the rest of the reported salaries from the California State Athletic Commission.
Silva earned a hefty $200,000 -- or 37.5 percent -- of the night's $533,501 total payroll.
Other top earners included main-event winner and middleweight champ Robbie Lawler ($90,000), Stockton product Nick Diaz ($60,000), and newly crowned welterweight champion Jake Shields ($45,000).
"Unfinished Business" took place July 26 at the Stockton Arena in Stockton, Calif. After a one-hour slot on Showtime, the event returned for its second stint on network television as part of the CBS "Saturday Night Fights" series.
The full payroll for the event included:
Robbie Lawler: $90,000 (which included a $45,000 win bonus) def. Scott Smith: $14,000
Nick Diaz: $60,000 (no win bonus) def. Thomas Denny: $8,500
Jake Shields: $45,000 ($10,000 win bonus) def. Nick Thompson: $25,000
Cristiane Cyborg: $6,000 ($3,000 win bonus) def. Shayna Baszler: $8,000
Antonio Silva: $200,000 ($100,000 win bonus) def. Justin Eilers: $20,000
Rafael "Feijao" Cavalcante: $20,000 ($10,000 win bonus) def. Travis Galbraith: $5,000
Wilson Reis: $5,000 ($2,500 win bonus) def. Bryan Caraway: $2,000
Anthony Ruiz: $5,001 ($3,000 win bonus) def. Jeremy Freitag: $2,5000
David Douglas: $4,000 ($1,500 win bonus) def. Marlon Matias: $2,500
Carl Seumanutafa: $4,000 ($2,000 win bonus) def. Mike Cook: $2000
Drew Montgomery: $3,000 ($1,500 win bonus) def. Brandon Tarn: $2,000
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. In other words, these are simply base salaries reported to the CSAC and do not represent the total amounts earned by each fighter.
