UFC 281 Payouts – Salaries, Bonuses & Facts

UFC 281 gave fight fans all they could ask for on Saturday night. The event was live from inside the Madison Square Garden in New York, NY. Alex Pereira defeated Israel Adesanya by TKO (Punches) Saturday, and in the co-main event, Weili Zhang defeated Carla Esparza in round 2 by Submission (Rear-Naked Choke).

This was 623rd event in Ultimate Fighting Championship history, including pay-per-views, UFC Fight Nights, and TUF finales. The pay-per-view card streamed on ESPN+ PPV following prelims on ESPN/ESPN+. In this post, we’ll go into detail on UFC 281 payouts, fighter bonuses, and event facts, including the attendance, total gate and PPV buys.

UFC 281 Attendance, Gate, Viewership

There were 20,845 fans in attendance. The gate for the event came out to $11,562,808. The viewership data is still pending. We’ll continue to update this post as soon as the information is available.

UFC 281 Bonuses

UFC 281 had 14 bouts scheduled. Dustin Poirier vs. Michael Chandler was awarded the Fight of the Night bonus. The Performance of the Night bonuses went to Alex Pereira and Zhang Weili. The fighters took home an extra $50,000.

There are four types of awards:

• Fight of the Night is awarded to two fighters who star in the exciting fight of the night.
• KO of the Night is awarded to the fighter who achieves the most spectacular Knockout.
• Submission of the Night is granted to the protagonist of the most striking submission.
• Performance of the Night is awarded the most impressive individual performance of the night.

UFC 281 Salaries

The total disclosed payroll for the event is PENDING. The figures below are base salaries reported to the commission and do not reflect entire compensation packages for the event. Here’s the full list of fighter payouts from UFC 281:

PENDING… We will update this section as soon as the fighter salaries are officially released. In the meantime, you can view all the UFC 281 results.

The UFC 281 payouts don’t include deductions for items such as insurance, licenses, and taxes. Additionally, these do not include pay-per-view cuts that some top-level fighters receive. They also do not include money paid by sponsors, Reebok pay, any other “locker room” or special discretionary bonuses the UFC often pays.

Did you know: The average UFC fighter made $138,000 in 2018, up from average earnings of $132,000 in 2017.

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