10 Rags To Riches Fighters Stories In The UFC

In all walks of life there’s few things more inspiring than a real-life rags to riches story, and that’s certainly the case in the sport of mixed martial arts.

Truth be told, MMA is still a relatively young sport in the grand scheme of things, with the leading promotion, UFC only having been in existence for 23 years.

Back in those early days it wasn’t clear whether the UFC would still be around the next year, let alone provide a good living for the fighters putting it all on the line in the Octagon.

However, as the sport has grown in popularity we have begun to see more and more examples of stars who have been able to make their fortune fighting on the sport’s biggest stage.

At this stage the fighters you are about to read about are very much the exception to the rule, but their tales of escaping the clutches of poverty and the drudgery of dead-end jobs to find fame and fortune inside the Octagon provide a source of hope and inspiration for future generations that will aspire to follow in the footsteps of these MMA stars.

Conor McGregor

Conor McGregor’s meteoric rise to fame and fortune in the UFC is unquestionably one of the most remarkable stories in the history of combat sports.

Though he was a two-division champion in UK organization Cage Warriors when he made his UFC debut On Fuel TV in 2013, the reality was that the 24 year-old was broke and still living under his parents roof at the time.

”Just last week I was collecting the social welfare,” McGregor told the media after TKO’ing Marcus Brimage. “I was in there saying to them, ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen. I’m signed to the UFC. I don’t know. Blah, blah, blah.’ Now I suppose I’m just going to have to tell them, [expletive] off.”

’The Notorious’ has never looked back since, with his charismatic personality and knack for backing his words up with brutal action in the Octagon proving to be an irresistible combination that’s made him the biggest star the sport has ever seen.

Along the way he’s become the first UFC fighter ever to hold two belts at the same time, broken the UFC’s pay-per-view record twice in 2016, and become rich beyond his wildest dreams.

”“This is a $40 million year for me,” McGregor stated in September.

Not bad for a fighter at one stage almost gave up MMA to become a plumber!

Ronda Rousey

Even before her MMA career, Ronda Rousey had achieved notoriety by becoming the first American woman ever to win a medal in Judo at the Olympics, taking home the bronze at the 2008 games in Beijing.

Rousey retired from Judo after the Olympics, and with just $10,000 in prize money to her name, it wasn’t long before the 21 year-old was working numerous part-time job, including being a bouncer, a bartender and a cocktail waitress, in an effort to make ends meet.

At one point things got so bad that Rousey was living out of her beat-up Honda Accord, before moving into a tiny 12×12 studio apartment as she made a fateful decision to pursue a career in MMA.

The sport proved to be a perfect match for ‘Rowdy’, and as she began armbarring opponents left, right and center it quickly became apparent that she had all the ingredients to be a star.

Strikeforce signed her up after just two professional fights, by her fifth fight she had won their 135lb title, and such was the buzz that she generated that UFC president Dana White finally decided to create a woman’s division.

The sky was now the limit for Rousey and she took the UFC by storm, instantly headlining events as she went on a six-fight wining streak as their bantamweight champ.

With each fight Rousey’s fame grew and so did her bank balance, leading to movie roles in blockbuster movies like ‘The Expendables 3’, ‘Furious 7’ and ‘Entourage’, a best-selling book about her life, major endorsement deals, magazine features and talk-show appearances.

By 2015, Rousey was a global superstar, one of the top 10 highest paid female athletes in the world and broke the UFC’s attendance record at UFC 193 when she fought Holly Holm in front of over 56,000 fans in Australia, with a further 1.1 million watching on PPV.

Jose Aldo

Jose aldo is an example of a fighter who truly rose from the depths of poverty to become an MMA star.

Hailing from the favelas of Manaus in Brazil, Aldo barely had more than a roof over his head growing up and had to rely on the charity of others to train martial arts.

In his teens Aldo worked double-shifts in construction to save up enough money to buy a ticket to fly to Rio to train at the famous Nova Uniao gym.

Showing up with one bag of clothes and no money to his name, Aldo slept in the gym at night and ate just once a day.

Aldo’s incredible sacrifices would pay off though as he began to compile an impressive winning record that would lead him to become a WEC champion and then arrive in the UFC as the featherweight champion of the world.

Aldo would go on to successfully defend his belt seven times in the UFC, being hailed as one of the sports pound-for-pound greats, while earning six-figure sums per fight.

However, undoubtedly his biggest ever payday came at UFC 194 in late 2015 when he finally came up against his rival Conor McGregor in the most heavily promoted fight in UFC history.

Aldo would shockingly lose in just 13 seconds, but with a basic salary of $400,000 and a champions cut of the 1.2 million PPV buys, ‘Scarface’ would never again have to worry about where his next meal was coming from.

Miesha Tate

When Miesha Tate decided to give up on medical school to become a professional fighter in 2007, woman’s MMA was still in the dark ages.

Tate and her boyfriend Bryan Caraway (another future UFC fighter) sacrificed a great deal during that time while pursuing their dream, living for two years in a 22-foot RV on a property that gave them access to a gym whenever they wanted it, living fight-to-fight for little money.

That hard work started to pay off a few years later when she became Strikeforce’s bantamweight champion, leading to a high profile fight with rising star Ronda Rousey in 2012, but she lost on that occasion by armbar and only earned ,000.

A year later the UFC finally opened the doors to woman’s MMA and it changed Tate’s life forever.

She would go on to establish herself as the second biggest star in WMMA and eventually won the bantamweight title in 2016.

Tate then headlined the historic UFC 200 event, by which stage her basic salary was an impressive $500,000, while a champion’s cut of the reported 1.2 million PPV buys earned her millions more that night.

Finally financially secure, the 30 year-old Tate retired earlier this month, and it’s expected that the popular star will now be offered a job within the UFC.

Anderson Silva

As hard as it is to imagine now, there was a time when all-time great Anderson Silva almost ditched his MMA career to work at McDonalds.

Silva was born into a family so poor that his mother sent him to live with his aunt and uncle at a young age.

In his youth, Silva did actually work at McDonalds, but then turned to fighting MMA professionally and racked up an 11-2 record, before a falling out with the famous Chute Boxe team in 2003, together with the PRIDE organization suddenly giving him the cold shoulder, led ‘The Spider’ to become disillusioned with the sport.

Silva began talking about either going back to working at McDonalds or running a car wash in Curitiba, but thankfully Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira refused to let such a talented fighter go to waste and helped him get his fighting career back on track.

A few years later the UFC signed Silva and from that point on he could do no wrong, quickly winning the middleweight title and defending it a record 10 times in the next seven years, cementing his status as a living legend.

Silva’s basic per-fight salary has reached as high as $800,000 during his career, while headlining several events with over 1 million PPV sales, making him a millionaire many times over, while being one of Brazil’s most famous sporting icons has led to lucrative sponsorships with huge brands like Nike, Burger King and Budweiser.

Nate Diaz

Nate Diaz has been a UFC fan favorite for many years, yet just a couple of years ago he was earning only ,000 a fight.

Claiming to be “broke” and with the IRS asking for “more money than I have right now,” in late 2013, Diaz refused to fight again until the UFC improved his contract or tore it up.

With the UFC refusing to play ball, a stand-off lasted over a year, until Diaz reluctantly returned to action for the same wage as before.

In late 2015 Diaz again tried taking matters in to his own hands, this time calling out the sport’s biggest star, Conor McGregor in a memorable, expletive-filled rant in the Octagon after a big win on FOX.

McGregor was lined up to fight the lightweight champion at the time, Rafael dos Anjos at UFC 196, but when he fell out injured on just 10 days notice, it was Diaz who was asked to step up on short notice, pocketing a cool $500,000 for his troubles.

Diaz shocked the world by becoming the first fighter to defeat McGregor in the Octagon in what would prove to be the UFC’s biggest PPV ever, with 1.6 million buys.

An immediate rematch was inevitable and Diaz made sure to hold out for a bumper payday at UFC 202, commanding not only a $2 million basic salary, but also taking a slice of the record breaking 1.7 million buys, reportedly earning a staggering $10.5 million on the back-end.

Michael Bisping

Michael Bisping’s first attempt to make a living from martial arts failed, as despite becoming the British light-heavyweight champion there wasn’t enough money to sustain himself and his young family.

That could have been the end of the story for Bisping, who went on to do many manual labour jobs, including working in slaughterhouses, demolition companies, factories and various other occupations like postman, plasterer and upholsterer.

Eventually he found his way into MMA, but fighting for UK promotions left him struggling to pay his bills and at times would sleep in his car in order to train at a gym in a different city.

His big break came in 2006 – winning The Ultimate Fighter Season 3 to earn a UFC contract and become the UK’s first major MMA star.

Since then Bisping has gone on to rack up no less than 27 fights in the UFC – tying for the all-time record with Tito Ortiz – and in 2016 achieved his dream of becoming the middleweight champion of the world.

Bisping has earned over $6 million in disclosed basic salaries and bonuses over the years, while he also serves as an analyst for FOX Sports and has branched out into acting work, ensuring that he’ll never have to sleep in his car again!

Junior dos Santos

At just 10 years old, Junior dos Santos was already working a variety of jobs along with attending school in the small town of Cacador, Brazil to help his struggling single mother, a cleaning lady, put food on the table for their family.

However, experiencing abject poverty only seemed to make the young Dos Santos’ more determined to make a better life for himself and his loved ones.

In 2006 at the age of 21, the 6ft 4” heavyweight stepped into an MMA gym for the first time, and it quickly became apparent to the coaches there that JDS had real potential, so it wasn’t long before he began fighting professionally.

It would take little more than two years before ‘Cigano’ would make it to the UFC, where he’d go on a nine fight winning streak, including winning the heavyweight title against Cain Velasquez at UFC On FOX 1 with 8.4 million viewers watching – a UFC record to this day.

Over the course of his career JDS has earned several million dollars and currently earns $400,000 per bout, not to mention additional PPV and sponsorship money – more than enough to live to a standard he could only have dreamed of as a youth, while also making sure to help out other family members financially too.

Dominick Cruz

In 2010 Dominick Cruz won the WEC bantamweight title and successfully defended the belt twice, extending his career record 17-1, but financially he was still living hand-to-mouth.

Prior to his title win the 24 year-old had offered a glimpse into the Spartan lifestyle of an up-and-coming fighter in a mock version of ‘Cribs’ from his tiny one-room pool house conversion, with little more than a mattress and a hand-written list of motivational quotes for company.

Cruz’s ‘Eat-train-sleep’ mentality started to pay off when the UFC started a bantamweight division with ‘The Dominator’ installed as champion.

However, just as Cruz was set to make millions in a blockbuster trilogy fight with his old rival Urijah Faber at UFC 148, disaster struck, with a series of career-threatening knee injuries keeping the star out of action for almost three years.

It’s something of a modern-day miracle story that Cruz managed to not only keep his head above water during that period, establishing himself as one of the very best analysts in the game on FOX Sports 1, but also eventually returned to action looking better than ever and reclaimed his title.

Nowadays, Cruz commands a basic salary of $350,000 per bout, is set to earn by far the biggest paycheck of his career in his next title defense in the co-main event of UFC 207 (headlined by WMMA superstar Ronda Rousey), and is rumored to be in the running for a color commentary role with the UFC when he retires.

UFC

While there are some terrific stories of fighters going from rags-to-riches, one of the most classic tales involves the company itself.

In January of 2001, Dana White convinced his wealthy Casino-owning friends, Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta, to purchase the struggling UFC organization for just $2 million.

It was a huge gamble given that the sport had been banned in many states in the U.S. and was fizzling out on pay-per-view, and in those early years the Fertitta’s would lose tens of millions of dollars and were on the verge of cutting their losses.

In 2005 they decided to give it one last shot and the success of The Ultimate Fighter reality show helped the promotion turn a corner, finally turning a profit in 2006 and going from strength to strength in the years that followed.

By 2016 the UFC had become a major success story, with PPV buys frequently breaking the 1 million barrier, events airing domestically on FOX, and hundreds of millions watching around the globe.

It was at that stage that the Fertitta’s decided it was time to cash in on their initial $2 million investment, with WME-IMG buying the company for a staggering $4.2 billion – the largest single deal in sporting history.