Adesanya wants more money for UFC fighters, reveals advice Tom Pereira

UFC Champion Israel Adesanya thinks the UFC needs to increase the amount they hand out for bonuses.

If a fighter wins the Performance of the Night or Fight of the Night bonus, they earn $50,000. On some rare occasions, UFC president Dana White has bumped up that amount.

While some fighters receive discretionary bonuses that aren’t revealed, middleweight champion Adesanya would like to see the base $50,000 increase.

“My knockouts alone are worth $50,000,” Adesanya said on “IMPAULSIVE”. “Alone, that’s knockouts, alone. Like my last one, bonus. I’ve said this, the UFC, sometimes they bump it up to $100(k) for certain cards. UFC 200 I think or UFC 100 they did, bonuses were $100k. When I knock someone I normally get a bonus, so I’m like my knockouts are worth $50,000.”

Adesanya has earned a bonus for all five of his octagon finishes – most recently when he avenged his title loss to Alex Pereira with a stunning knockout at UFC 287 in April. Adesanya also received $50,000 for a Fight of the Night against Anderson Silva, followed by a Fight of the Year against Kelvin Gastelum.

“The UFC and WWE merger, $21.4 billion dollar company,” Adesanya continued. “I’m like, ‘Yo, they can go up.’ It’s been a few years, inflation has been going up. The bonus got to go up, that’s how I feel. But, I’ve told them this, I’ve said this publicly, it’s nothing crazy.”

Adesanya is targeting his next title defense against Dricus Du Plessis, but first, the South African fighter has to get past Robert Whittaker at UFC 290 on July 8.

Meanwhile, Adesanya is sharing the advice he gave Pereira regarding his upcoming fight with Jan Blanchowicz at UFC 291.

‘Poatan’, following the loss, made the decision to move to the light heavyweight division and will be debuting his new weight class against Jan Blachowicz (29-9 MMA) at UFC 291 on  Saturday, July 29th at the Vivint Arena in Salt Lake City, Utah.

It was during a recent encounter at the airport that Adesanya and Pereira spoke briefly, some of the conversation captured on video.

Adesanya, speaking on the ‘Impaulsive’ podcast with Logan Paul, shared some advice he gave Pereira during their encounter:

“We talked, went through security, took our shoes off. And then we’re waiting for our bags to come through the belt, and then we talked about — I was like, ‘Jan next, yeah?’ He’s fighting the guy, first MMA loss for me, when I went up to 205 (pounds). He kinda has the same idea.”

Adesanya has a history with Jan Blanchowicz, they met in March of 2021 at UFC 259 where it was Blanchowicz who handed Adesanya the first loss of his professional career.

Continuing ‘The Last Stylebender’ reflected on the Blanchowicz fight and his style saying ,

“Through our limited conversation skills, because of his English and my Portuguese, we kinda had the same idea of what’s gonna happen. But I had to let him know, I thought the same thing when I fought Jan. I thought Jan was gonna attack me a little bit more but he was patient. So I kinda let him (Pereira) know, you be patient too. I didn’t wanna say too much, but yeah.”