How much did Fedor get paid for his fights in Pride?

[FastTracker]

I read somewhere that some fighter will get pay more than it was revealed, and all in cash,in some suitcase or something like that

 

[crofighter]

I think that Cro Cop had the best contract in Pride...him and Wand. But Fedor was also making big money because he was getting some kind of bonuses.

 

[Prince Nephilim]

I read somewhere that some fighter will get pay more than it was revealed, and all in cash,in some suitcase or something like that

That's some straight yakuza shit right there

 

[Drake]

I heard most of the Russian fighters were paid in a combination of money and vodka

Kind of funny you say this. Despite Fedor being the ultimate Russian...I can't imagine him getting drunk off vodka. Or anything really. He seems just so normal, stoic & "straight edge"

 

[FastTracker]

That's some straight yakuza shit right there

Iirc Goodrigde said that before the Ogawa fight, a guy talk to him about giving him money, something like 70k in cash to lose the fight, he refused and still lose. Then said that he regret not taking the money.

 

[SMEGMA]

Not as much as you'd think because he was one of their lesser drawing stars.

 

[KOfinger]

He got around 1.2 million per fight. There were articles about pride fighters pay back when pride was still on. Before every event we got an announcement and fedor was almost always around 1.2 million.

Don't ask me to provide a source, it was between 2003-2005, so I don't know what websites those were. I also remember that Coleman was paid around 600k for one of his fights with fedor(I don't remember which).

 

[The Best JG]

pride fought valiantly, pride fought nobly, pride fought honorably, and pride folded

 

[daniel san]

He got around 1.2 million per fight. There were articles about pride fighters pay back when pride was still on. Before every event we got an announcement and fedor was almost always around 1.2 million.

I hope this is true but I'm not so sure. I recall a Fedor interview from maybe 4-5 years ago where he said it wasn't until late in his career he started earning big money. This was after he fought in Affliction where his purse was something like $800k if I remember correctly. Throughout his career he has probably made enough money for the Emelianenko's to live comfortably for generations of which most of that cash comes from post Pride (just guessing).

 

[Xtal]

Does anyone have any idea what kind of pay Fedor received for his fights in Pride? Perhaps his fight with Cro Cop for example. I'm sure he got a dramatic pay increase once he beat Big Nog and became champ however I haven't been able to find any solid sources of reported pay outs for Fedor's fights back in Pride. Even if someone has some rough estimates.

I'm not talking about his fights post Pride such as bodog and Afflition; I've read his payouts for mother qost of his fights after Pride. Another question regarding Pride...What was their guidelines on Sponsors and that whole fiasco? Obviously they didn't have any bullshit like the mandatory Reebok, but if anyone could shed some light on the Sponsor situation would be great.

Fedor was a pretty big celebrity back in Japan, so it must have been better than most fighters maybe with the exception of Wand and Crop cop..

Here's a gem I found a while ago that I thought was interesting. Looks like the Japanese saw Fedor as some sort of god.

A lot. He got paid a lot. Fedor's more than set for life. think of this: Pride 32 was the first event in America and thus they had no American advertising, only like 12,000 PPV buys, and an arena 1/4th to 1/8th the size of many in Japan, but Fedor still had a disclosed pay of $100k. I imagine he received quite a bit more, as Pride was very keen on paying in cash and avoiding taxes, but making $100k on a very unpopular card is ridiculous, so imagine what he was making in Japan where they had arenas that hold 50,000, sometimes 90,000 people along with major TV deals. Even with Yakuza corruption, the top guys like Fedor, Wanderlei, etc, were very well taken care of. Unfortunately, there's no concrete data and only speculation, but I would be very surprised if Fedor made less than $500k in even his lowest paying matches.

But for that bolded part, people tend to forget just how massive MMA and K-1 were in Japan over the course of Pride's run. Bob Sapp was one of the most famous people in Japan for a long because of his fights, his character gimmick and TV appearances, as did many of the Pride guys like Josh Barnett and a lot more. Wanderlei and Mark Coleman were in maybe the greatest commercial ever from Japan back in the day:


Hell, even Ernesto Hoost of all people appeared randomly in one of the Silent Library comedy segments on Gaki no Tsukai, which is one of the most popular segments from a show that's been huge for nearly 30 years, and was in it's peak popularity at the time:


Ok I lied. This is the best commercial ever: