While the amount of money Francis Ngannou is set to make against Tyson Fury in October hasn’t been disclosed, we do know this: it’s a lot of money. Life changing money, according to Ngannou’s rep. Multiple times the amount of money he made across his entire UFC career.
Now we have another data point on Ngannou’s upcoming payday: it’s an eight figure sum, which may have been misreported by some outlets to be $8 million. Not so, says Ngannou’s friend and PFL partner Jake Paul.
“Francis got 8 figures. Not $8 million. Get it right,” he tweeted. “To all the twitter geniuses, 8 figures = $10,000,000+ and Francis deserves every bit of it.”
Maybe MMA fans just aren’t used to hearing the words ‘eight figure payday’ since the only fighter to make ten million plus dollars in the UFC off a single fight would be Conor McGregor. Not even Brock Lesnar came too close to the eight figure mark — he reportedly made $8 million for his fight against Mark Hunt at UFC 200.
How much above the $10 million mark Ngannou sits remains a mystery, but we’d be shocked if he didn’t make at least twice that much. Deontay Wilder made around $25 million for his second and third fight against Tyson Fury, and this match between Ngannou and Fury should blow the Wilder fights out of the water PPV-sales wise.
It’s a shame that UFC fighters (not named McGregor) have to cross over to boxing in order to make this kind of money. Any pay-per-view selling over 500,000 buys is making enough for both fighters in the main event and the promoter to earn eight figures. Everyone could be making big money. But instead pay towards fighters represents just 18% of the UFC’s revenue (with some reports having that figure dropping down to 13% in recent years).
As Ngannou’s boxing bout with Tyson Fury in Saudi Arabia approaches, we’re sure a clearer picture of just how much he’s making will appear. And given the big money purses the Kingdom has been splashing sports players with, we expect the number to be really big.
This story originally appeared on MMA Mania
