Bellator 115 salaries: Cheick Kongo, Vitaly Minakov lead $154K payroll

Bellator MMA heavyweight title challenger Cheick Kongo and champion Vitaly Minakov were the top earners at this past Friday’s Bellator 115 event.

MMAjunkie obtained the list of disclosed paydays from the Nevada State Athletic Commission, which oversaw Friday’s event at Reno Events Center. The main card aired on Spike TV following prelims on Spike.com.

The total disclosed payroll for the event was $154,000.

In the main event, Minakov (14-0 MMA, 5-0 BMMA) retained his Bellator heavyweight title with a five-round decision victory over Kongo (20-9-2 MMA, 2-1 BMMA). Kongo had the top salary for the event with $50,000 in show money. Had he won, he’d have netted another $50,000 in win bonus. Minakov received $35,000 to retain his title with $17,000 base pay and a $17,500 win bonus.

The card was supposed to feature a pair of tournament semifinal fights, but welterweight Andrey Koreshkov got the flu and his fight with Sam Oropeza was scrapped and moved to Bellator 118, and Jeremy Kimball failed to make weight for his fight with Dan Cramer, scdrapping their middleweight tourney semifinal. Had those fights happened, the winners of each would have netted $30,000 with $15,000 to show and $15,000 to win, while the losers would have gotten $15,000 in tournament show money.

The full list of disclosed paydays for Bellator 115 included:

Champ Vitaly Minakov: $35,000 (includes $17,500 win bonus)
def. Cheick Kongo: $50,000

Justin Baesman: $3,000
majority draw vs. Herman Terrado: $3,000

Kelly Anundson: $4,000 (includes $2,000 win bonus)
def. Volkan Oezdemir: $4,000

Mikkel Parlo: $14,000 (includes $7,000 win bonus)
def. Johnny Cisneros: $2,000

Rudy Morales: $6,000 (includes $3,000 win bonus)
def. Jimmy Jones: $3,000

Rick Reeves: $8,000 (includes $4,000 win bonus)
def. James Terry: $3,000

Freddie Aquitania: $6,000 (includes $3,000 win bonus)
def. Josh Appelt: $6,000

Sinjen Smith: $2,000 (includes $1,000 win bonus)
def. Jason Powell: $1,000

Benito Lopez: $3,000 (includes $1,500 win bonus)
def. Oscar Ramirez: $1,000

Now, the usual disclaimer: The figures do not include deductions for items such as insurance, licenses and taxes. Additionally, the figures do not include money paid by sponsors, which can oftentimes be a substantial portion of a fighter’s income. They also do not include any other “locker room” or special discretionary bonuses that some organizations are known to pay.

In other words, the above figures are simply base salaries reported to the commission and do not reflect entire compensation packages for the event.

For additional coverage of Bellator 115, check out the MMA Events section of the site.

(Pictured: Cheick Kongo and Vitaly Minakov)