UFC strawweight JoJo Calderwood had the biggest win of her career on Saturday, doing what neither Joanna Jedrzejczyk nor Claudia Gadelhacould – stopping #5 ranked Valerie Letourneau.
It was an awesome fight, albeit with some baffling refereeing. And it was on the main card, not some minor UFC Fight Pass prelim.
Salaries for the event have not been released, but Calderwood is believed to have made $12,000 to show plus $12,000 more to win, plus $2,500 in Reebok money. This was her only fight in 2016. She fought twice in 2015, winning a $50,000 Fight of the Night bonus for one of them.
This time the Fight of the Night bonuses went to Steve Bosse and Sean O’Connnell, for a fight that was not terribly technical, but showed the extraordinary heart it takes to refuse to take a step backwards.
Calderwood trained for the event at Tristar in Montreal, 3,000 miles from her home in Kilmarnock, Scotland. And she has to eat. And governments collect taxes like it’s their job.
So start with $26,500, and then back out a bunch, and this Instagram makes perfect, sad, sad sense.
Calderwood is just beat the #5 ranked fighter in the world, and is going to have to get a job and save, so she can go back to her job of fighting.
Donald ‘Cowboy’ Cerrone’s last fight earned him a contracted income of 79/79, and it was a win, so his purse was North of that this time. Plus he won a $50,000 performance bonus on Saturday. Thus his compensation was undoubtedly over $200,000. However, at the post fight press conference, he said ” according to my pay I don’t mean s*** to the UFC. But we’ll see – going to talk to Dana after this and figure that out.
If $200,000 doesn’t mean s***, then what does $26,500 mean?
