The
UFC allegedly offered Ronda
Rousey a massive pay-per-view deal but not a guaranteed fight
purse.
Rousey (12-2) is scheduled to fight fellow veteran Gina Carano
(7-1) on May 16 at the Intuit Dome in Los Angeles, California. The
fight will take place on a Netflix card under Jake Paul’s
Most Valuable Promotions.
Advertisement
Rousey revealed that she was originally in talks with the UFC for
her return to MMA after nearly a decade. According to “Rowdy,” Dana
White offered her the highest percentage of pay-per-view shares in
UFC history. However, White wanted more time to confirm the deal.
Things permanently changed when the UFC’s ESPN deal ended last
year, marking the end of the pay-per-view model as well. The UFC
made a multi-billion dollar deal with Paramount, switching to a
subscription-based streaming model starting in 2026.
A Shift in Focus
Rousey claims that after the pay-per-view era ended, the UFC did
not want to pay her the guaranteed amount that she thought she
deserved. According to the former UFC bantamweight champion, the
promotion is now leaning toward cost-effective fights as opposed to
matching up the best against each other.
“[Dana] literally brought me a deal where I would make more
per pay-per-view buy than anybody in UFC history… He just needed
more time, and it happened to go to the other side when the ESPN
model would be ending, and they would be going to streaming,”
Rousey said on “The Jim Rome Show.’ “They didn’t want to set a
precedent of giving me the guaranteed money I deserve… They just
made a $7.7 billion deal at Paramount. It’s in their best interest
not to put on the best fights possible, but to spend as little
money as possible so they can keep it… Now that they sold the
company, it’s out of Dana’s hands unfortunately, and it’s fallen
onto Hunter
Campbell and UFC corp. They don’t care about putting on the
best fights possible; they care about putting on the most
cost-effective fights possible.”
Ronda
Rousey says Dana White offered her the largest PPV deal in UFC
history before the move to Paramount+, but wasn’t willing to offer
a guaranteed amount once the new deal was in place 😬„They didn’t want to set a precedent of giving me the guaranteed
money I deserve… they… pic.twitter.com/W6BqhJnTfv— Championship Rounds (@ChampRDS)
February 21, 2026