Fighter pay has always been a hot topic when it comes to the UFC. While some fighters can earn millions for being a main event star, those starting out on the prelims don’t earn enough for them to make being a professional mixed martial artist a full-time profession.

Ronda Rousey was someone who earned the big bucks in the UFC, but she took a swipe at the company when revealing the minimum pay for those fighting on the MVP MMA card on May 16, which turned out to be significantly higher than the UFC to the point where someone could make in the region of $120,000 if they fought three times per year.

With that said, money isn’t always the main thing some people fight for, like current UFC Middleweight Champion Khamzat Chimaev, who criticized Rousey’s comments in a recent vlog documenting his current training camp. “There never would have been Ronda Rousey without UFC,” Chimaev said. “I hate this, like you’re ungrateful. If they pay good or they don’t pay good, who cares? When she was Olympic champ, what did she make then?”

Pay in the UFC has changed somewhat for main eventers since Rousey last fought for the company in 2016. She made approximately $3 million in her loss to Amanda Nunes at UFC 207, which amounted to nearly two-thirds of the entire fighter pay out for the card. For Chimaev, his UFC 319 victory over Dricus Du Plessis where he became the UFC Middleweight Champion saw him make an estimated amount of just over $2.5 million, with “DDP” making just under $4 million. However, the pay scale is still extremely low for the overall company compared to other sports, with fighters only earning between 15-20% of the company’s revenue, as opposed to the NFL, boxing, or even the Premier League where all three of those franchises share over half its revenue with its athletes.

Please credit the original source when using quotes from this article, and give a H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.

Amongst the list of many stars who have parted ways with WWE following WrestleMania 42, the two who fans have been the most shocked about have been Aleister Black and Zelina Vega. Especially in light of Black, who was released nearly a year to the day after his return to WWE, while Vega had a Women’s United States Championship reign just last year.

Taking to Twitch after the news broke, Vega revealed that the call to be cut came from TKO and not WWE, and because the call came from the parent company and not Stamford, she knew it was dire before she even answered the call. 

“5:09 PM is when I found out,” she claimed. Vega also confirmed that she is under a non-compete clause and won’t be able to return to pro wrestling for 90 days following her release yesterday.

“Not even like, okay, I was off TV necessarily all the time. I was off TV for a bit, if you would’ve let ‘Zelina’ like be ‘Zelina’ in the way I had envisioned, or we had envisioned, for this new character, y’all would’ve f**king loved it,” she said, claiming there were many plans she had for her character.

At the same time, Vega isn’t happy about how the news of her release broke, and expressed her anger about outlets like “Fightful” for getting ahead of her with the news. 

“I would’ve appreciated it if Sean Ross Sapp or whoever the f**k announced it could’ve at least given me the decency to do it myself first,” she exclaimed, but thanked all the fans who have stood by her since 2020.

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit Zelina Vega’s Twitch channel and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.