Daniel Cormier doesn't think Jon Jones will get $30M to fight Tom Aspinall
Yesterday at 07:33 PM
A fight between heavyweight champion Jon Jones and interim titleholder Tom Aspinall is something UFC CEO Dana White guaranteed would happen this year. It's just a matter of negotiations.
UFC commentator and popular podcast Joe Rogan recently stated on his podcast that he's heard Jones is asking for $30 million to fight Aspinall. Former two-division UFC champion Daniel Cormier doesn't think Jones will get paid that amount but also doesn't think the request was an 'outlandish ask.'
"Now when you start looking at it like that, you start going, I don't know if his ask is as crazy as people are saying," Cormier said on his YouTube channel. "You can do 16 mil at the gate, you can do whatever you do on pay-per-view, you've got sponsorships for the fight night, those aren't yours, you are bringing them on, but there are sponsors on fight night, now that ask is not so crazy.
"Rogan thinks the UFC will pay the $30 million to get Jon Jones in there with Tom Aspinall. I'm not sure he gets to 30, but if you ask for 30 and you get 20 or you get 15, that's a win for Jon Jones on his way out. Especially living in Albuquerque, where everything is so dang cheap, he's not living in California."
Cormier recalls when he was the competing for heavyweight and light heavyweight titles five years ago, and the pay was no where near what the top fighters are paid today.
"I'll tell you guys, as a person who has been involved in big fights, a person who has sold pay-per-views, a person who at his time was at the top of the pay scale in the UFC as the heavyweight and light heavyweight champion, $30 million was literally a world away from anything we were making," Cormier said.
"I remember when I got paid in New York, I got a big bump to take a fight on three weeks' notice, which ultimately became my salary, and people were astounded with the number. But I will tell you it was a fraction of what that number that he's asking for is. It was nowhere near that. But I've heard now rumors that the higher-end guys are making more. The Israel Adesanya, the Jon Jones, the Stipe Miocic. I heard that Stipe Miocic made big money for the last fight."
