Un-redacted documents reveal UFC paid Lyoto Machida hefty bonuses for finishes

When Lyoto Machida still called the UFC home, the promotion made it very much worth his while to finish fights.

Now un-redacted documents being used in the UFC Anti-Trust Lawsuit have revealed that Machida was given a hefty $100,000 bonus when he scored a knockout, TKO or submission win — seemingly in addition to any Performance of the Night bonuses he might have received. It’s not clear whether this arrangement lasted for the duration of his UFC career, or just for a portion of it.

This interesting information was unearthed by Jason Cruz the hard-working reporters at Bloody Elbow.

Also from the newly undredacted Singer report, Lyoto Machida had a Letter of Agreement while in the #UFC which gave him a $100K bonus for any stoppage. The bonus was specific to Machida and presumably in addition any additional Performance of FOTN bonus he may have received. pic.twitter.com/wbAOFVZXVf

— Jason Cruz (@dilletaunt) July 29, 2019

Here’s how this segment of the document is worded:

…an agreement with Lyoto Machida that awards a stoppage bonus (“Further, Zuffa shall pay Fighter a Stoppage Bonus for such Bout in the amount of One Hundred Thousand Dollars (US $100,000), less all permissible or required deductions and withholding. For purposes of this Agreement, a Stoppage occurs if and only if Fighter is declared the winner of the Bout by Knock Out, Technical Knock Out or Submission by the applicable Athletic Commission.”).

Machida began his UFC career in 2007, and ultimately earned the promotion’s light heavyweight title with a violent knockout of Rashad Evans. He later surrendered the title to Mauricio “Shogun” Rua, and fought for UFC gold on two subsequent occasions — once against Jon Jones at light heavyweight, once against Chris Weidman at middleweight — losing both times.

While Machida was occasionally criticized for less-than-thrilling performances, he was also behind some of the most impressive knockouts in UFC history, including unforgettable finishes of Rashad Evans, Thiago Silva, Randy Couture, Ryan Bader, Mark Munoz and Vitor Belfort. In light of this new information, it seems these knockouts were quite lucrative for him.

Lyoto Machida is now signed with Bellator MMA, and is closing in on a middleweight title shot with the promotion.

This article first appeared on BJPENN.COM on 8/7/2019.