According to a Feb. 26 report from Yahoo! Sports, UFC President Dana White isn't sure if Ronda Rousey's UFC 157 payday will go down as the biggest purse ever paid to a female in combat sports.
“I don’t care what anybody made because I’ve looked at a lot of women’s numbers,” said White. “This is probably going to be the biggest purse for a woman, too.”
Carano made $125,000 for her 2009 fight against Cris "Cyborg" Santos, not including endorsement and sponsor money.
Rousey's official pay wasn't released to the public.
“It’s going to end up being the biggest women’s pay-per-view of all time, the biggest women’s pay-per-view fight ever,” said UFC president Dana White following UFC 157.
The Rousey vs Carmouche event sold in the range of 400,000 pay-per-views, so both ladies will make additional money from PPV revenues.
“This is going to smoke that. Smoke it,” said White of Rousey vs. Carmouche compared to female combat sporting events in the past. “It’s the most successful women’s fight of all time. This was the most successful fight ever in the history of women’s fighting. Christy Martin, Laila Ali, all the girls that have fought.”
Rousey's manager thinks a fight between Rousey and Carano would make ridiculous money for the UFC, so it's clearly an interesting bout that people want to see.
"Gina [Carano] has a very lucrative movie career and it doesn't really make a lot of sense for Gina, but, Gina is a fighter in her heart and I think Gina may want to prove that she can beat someone like Ronda who is considered the best," Rousey's manager said. "I am very close to her (Carano's) manager and we've talked about it on occasion. But, I would never want to see her (Rousey) fight with somebody that I like. It's a very tough thing, but, it is a business and they would get in. Sparring partners get together and they beat the crap out of each other in the gym so they certainly could do it for real. From a PR and pay-per-view (PPV) perspective it would be a huge, huge monumental event."
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