A former champion still deserves to get paid like a champion, don’t you agree? Of course, Alex Pereira’s defeat at the hands of Magomed Ankalaev was nothing short of disappointing for every fight fan cheering for ‘Poatan’. The audience did boo when the Russian champion began to dominate. He also succeeded in almost dropping the man with the hands of stone. However, when it comes to compliance pay, Pereira bagged enough to shut the haters out. The 37-year-old received the highest amount of compliance pay at UFC 313. Yes, even more than Ankalaev and Justin Gaethje.

The UFC Promotional Guidelines Compliance payout is nothing but a comprehensive plan that pays the athletes a fair share of money for outfitting requirements, media obligations, and other stuff included in the fighter code of conduct. And at UFC 313, the total compliance pay amounted to $213,500. For the event, the former light heavyweight champion received $42,000 under compliance pay. Despite being the winner of the main event and becoming the new light heavyweight champion, Ankalaev got $10,000 less than Pereira. 

But you’d be surprised to know that even though ‘The Highlight’ showed a phenomenal performance against Rafael Fiziev and won the co-main event, even he couldn’t match Pereira’s paycheck. Gaethje got his wallet thickened by just $11K, almost 4 times less than what Pereira got. And, his opponent, Fiziev, received around $6,000. 

To be fair, almost all fighters who enter the Octagon at a numbered event as champions tend to receive $42,000 in compliance pay. And the challengers get $32,000. The same was true for UFC 311 and UFC 312, where Islam Makhachev, Merab Dvalishvili, and Dricus Du Plessis all received $42K. The pay was similar even though the total UFC Promotional Guidelines Compliance payout for UFC 311 was $306K, and that for UFC 312 was $254,500. 

But if we keep the compliance pay aside, there was another spot where Justin Gaethje managed to receive a higher amount of cash than Alex Pereira. Do you want to know what that is? Let’s find 

Justin Gaethje beats Alex Pereira by getting these bonuses

First of all, ‘The Highlight’ succeeded in defeating his opponent at the co-main event. This got him what some would say – a luscious amount – through the win bonus. On top of that, Gaethje made sure that his performance was worthy enough of the Fight of the Night bonus. It was his 9th Fight of the Night bonus in the UFC. This pushed his total paycheck up by an additional $50,000. The former BMF champion has bagged 14 fight-night bonuses in 14 UFC appearances. That number is indeed the highest any fighter has been awarded with the bonus since 2017.

On the other hand, Pereira not only failed to secure a win bonus but also failed to get either the Fight of the Night bonus or the Performance of the Night bonus. Nevertheless, the former Brazilian light heavyweight champion was the highest-paid athlete at UFC 313. His base salary was reported to be around $1 million. He also got an additional $42,000 from sponsorships and a good chunk of cash from the PPV share. With that, his total payout can be estimated to be around $3.5 million. Meanwhile, Gaethje’s total paycheck is expected to be around $1.5 million. 

What are your thoughts on the amount of compliance pay money that the fighters received? Do you think the UFC should pay the winners a bit more than what they received? Should the compliance pay be distributed among the fighters according to their popularity? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.