Tag Archives: Robbie Lawler

MMA’s Most Overrated and Underrated Fighters

Dec 20, 2016
Christopher Kennedy
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Just like every other sport, there are a lot of overrated and underrated fighters in MMA. Since there are so many weight classes in MMA, it can be hard to accurately asses the skills of every professional fighter. This leads to some fighters getting more respect than they deserve while other fighters never get the credit they have earned. These are the fighters that are in my opinion the most overrated and underrated in mixed martial arts right now.

 

Underrated

Khabib Nurmagomedov

It may be hard to imagine an undefeated fighter as underrated, but Khabib Nurmagomedov has been overlooked on a regular basis during his time in the UFC. Despite easily beating every top contender in the UFC’s lightweight division, Nurmagomedov has never been given a title shot. He has proven that he can beat any professional mixed martial artist, but Nurmagomedov is still only at number 12 on the UFC’s pound-for-pound rankings. His spot in the rankings is continually too low because he does not own a title, but that has absolutely nothing to do with the fighting ability of Khabib Nurmagomedov. The disrespect he gets in the sport is on display every time he is forced to fight on the undercard of a major UFC pay-per-view despite being one of the best in the world.

 

Stephen Thompson

In addition to only being defeated one time in his first 15 professional MMA fights, Stephen Thompson has had no problem defeating some of the top contenders in the UFC’s welterweight division. Thompson finally got the title shot he deserved at UFC 205, and he ended up fighting to a draw with champion Tyron Woodley. The 8th best fighter in the UFC was unable to defeat Stephen Thompson, but he is still nowhere to be found on the company’s pound-for-pound rankings.

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UFC 195: Lawler vs. Condit – Who’s Getting Paid?

Dec 30, 2015
McKinley Noble
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UFC 195 kind of crept up on the MMA world a bit, and one only needs to blame the whirlwind of the “UFC Vegas” week that wrapped up the 2015 combat sports calendar. However, the holiday MMA break officially ends with the first pay-per-view bash of the new year, and this upcoming headliner is a damn good one.

In what can only be anticipated as a top-tier, world-class match for the ages, Robbie Lawler defends the UFC Welterweight Championship against Carlos Condit, while a number of contenders, journeymen, and prospects fight for various stakes on a very solid card. Let’s take a look at the money trail one last time for 2015, and dive into the previous UFC fighter salaries (plus most-recent Reebok payouts) for every main card talent at UFC 195 this weekend.

Note: Divisional rankings via Fight Matrix. UFC salaries and Reebok figures via MMA Payout and MMA Junkie.

 

Robbie Lawler [#1 WW]
$340,000 = $150,000/$150,000 + $40,000* [UFC 189]

Carlos Condit [#8 WW]
$110,000 = $55,000/$55,000 [UFC 143]

Analysis: Robbie Lawler is going into his 19th Zuffa bout here, and his disclosed pay continues to hover slightly above the last-known salaries of most non-superstar UFC champions. Aside from the obvious bonus of retaining his title, it would be interesting to be how high Lawler could push his value with a few more victories — especially given his history as Zuffa’s revived golden boy.

For Condit, this will be his first salary reported since his infamous fight with Nick Diaz in 2012, where Condit took home $110,000 in victory — barely more than half of what Diaz made to lose ($200,000). At a 2-3 stretch since then and despite a short interim title reign, it’s worrisome to think that a past-prime Condit may have already hit his financial peak.

 

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