Jake Paul's co-promoter unveils payout structure for Ronda Rousey vs. Gina Carano fight card, athlete bonus incentives

Jake Paul’s Most Valuable Promotions (MVP) is set to host its first MMA event with the big double-return bout between Ronda Rousey and Gina Carano this Saturday, May 16, live from Los Angeles’ Intuit Dome. MVP co-founder Nakisa Bidarian has high expectations for the historic event on Netflix.

MVP has done its best to disrupt the combat sports world since its creation in 2021, particularly in boxing. The organization of this weekend’s MMA debut alone has already accomplished that with the big names and platform involved, but for Bidarian, it goes even deeper. The MVP co-founder said Tuesday on “The Ariel Helwani Show” that all fighters on the card will be paid a minimum of $40,000, more than UFC’s typical introductory fighter salary of $12,000 to show and $12,000 to win. Unlike the UFC’s show-win pay model, MVP’s purses will also be a flat rate, with bonus incentives still in play.

"That's guaranteed, and then every fighter has a performance bonus in addition to that, which there are different levels depending on the fighter,” Bidarian told Uncrowned.

"We will have a Fight of the Night. Jake and I need to kind of discuss it, and we'll announce it at the right time. But every fighter does have a performance bonus incentive."

The differences in pay structure don’t end there. Bidarian noted Saturday’s event will operate with a unique revenue share compared to the UFC’s approach, which typically pays its fighters between 16-20% of the revenue earned by the company.

"[The revenue share] is much higher than 50% to the fighters. Much higher,” Bidarian said. “Our objective is not to lose money and obviously make a little bit of money, but it’s really about putting the money back into the pockets of the fighters. They’re the ones risking their lives. They’re the ones people are paying to see, and we feel like we’ve lived up to that to this point, and we're going to continue to live up to that."