Georges St-Pierre Reveals Details Of His UFC Earnings: ‘I Was Making Many Millions’
In a new, revealing interview, former UFC welterweight and middleweight champion Georges St-Pierre has revealed how cleverly he managed his fighting career, and how he was able to leverage his ability and popularity when it came to negotiating his fight earnings, revealing that he was “making many millions of dollars.”
St-Pierre, 40, is widely considered to be one of the greatest MMA fighters of all-time, a former two-division UFC champion who reigned over the welterweight division across two title runs from 2006-13, captured the middleweight strap against Michael Bisping in 2017 following a four-year hiatus from competition, and stands as one of history’s most popular and marketable MMA stars. However, GSP certainly did not start out making massive money.
In a new piece for Wealthsimple Magazine titled, “The UFC Won’t Pay You Fairly Unless You Make Them,” St-Pierre explains that he was paid $3,000 to show and $3,000 to win in his UFC debut against Karo Parisyan in 2004 at UFC 46. When he received his first welterweight title shot that same year, St-Pierre was paid $9,000 to show after losing via first-round submission to Hughes.
Fast-forward four years, and St-Pierre had won the trilogy against Hughes after beating him twice. With a title defence against Jon Fitch looming at UFC 87, and with his contract about to expire, GSP decided to take a risk on himself.
“There is no union in the fight game. So, for us in MMA, negotiations can become like a chess game,” St-Pierre wrote. “Other organizations wanted to have me as their poster boy and UFC knew that. So, like a poker bluff, we said, ‘We don’t want to re-sign before the fight — we want to just finish the contract.’ We took a big risk. Because it’s like a stock market. Your stock might go up if you’re successful, but it can also go down if you lose. But that’s what we decided to do.”
According to St-Pierre, his risk paid off before he ever stepped foot in the Octagon. “I took a big gamble on myself and told UFC I was not going to re-sign with them. And then, the day before my fight with Jon Fitch, the UFC came back with a big, crazy contract because they didn’t want me to become a free agent,” St-Pierre wrote.
“You read I made $400,000 a match? No. I made a lot more than that. A lot more than that. Millions. When I was at the peak of my career, I was making many millions of dollars. Because you not only get the money to show and the money to win, but you also have a percentage of the gate and pay-per-view buys — the gate and the pay-per-views are where the real money is. That’s how fighters make their money. But you need to have the power to negotiate those terms.”
GSP also noted how instead of wasting money on material things, he invested his money into himself, purchasing recovery tools such an ice bath, as well as searching for the best coaches and trainers in the world in order to keep himself ahead of the game. Had he not done so, GSP believes be would not be in the same position he is in today.
There’s a lot of people buried in the desert for much less than what I made for that fight, my friend,” St-Pierre wrote. “For the fight with Michael Bisping, with the pay-per-views, the sponsorship and all that, I made about $10 million. Then in 2019, I got out. I’m very lucky and very privileged that I finished on top. The reality is most fighters finish broke and broken. They hang there too long. They get brain damage. They go broke. I’m very healthy and I’m wealthy. It’s very rare to find someone that hangs up his gloves and finishes on top like this.”
St-Pierre is one of the few fighters to make such a clean exit from his fighting career. With his health nearly fully intact and with all of his faculties as well, Georges St-Pierre is certainly one of the fighters that many currently in the sport should be aspiring to.
Are you suprised to hear Georges St-Pierre earned so much money during his career?
