Jose Aldo’s Fight Purse: How Much Money Did He Make Against Conor McGregor and in His UFC Career?

Jose Aldo has arrived. The legendary UFC star, who retired briefly in 2022 and was out for the last year, is back in the octagon and will take on #13 ranked bantamweight Jonathan Martinez at the UFC 301 clash on the UFC’s first PPV card of the year in Brazil.

The 37-year-old, who has been with the promotion for the past fifteen years, will earn a reported $550,000 for the bout and has an opportunity to get into the rankings of the bantamweight division. That is, if he doesn’t retire again, as many feel he might.

What is Jose Aldo’s highest-earning salary in the UFC?

Predictably, Jose Aldo’s highest purse, worth seven figures, in his long and distinguished MMA career, came against the sport’s biggest and highest-paid superstar. In 2015, at the height of his powers, Conor McGregor was booked to fight Aldo, who was well on his way to becoming the greatest featherweight in UFC history at UFC 194. And the hype for the fight was real, and the card was wildly successful.

UFC 194, buoyed by McGregor’s magnetism and hypnotic charisma, did 1.2 million PPV buys. This made the 194 card the most successful card in UFC history up to that point second only to the UFC 100 anniversary mega-card, which raked in 1.6 million PPV buys. Aldo, of course, fell to the bombastic Irishman in thirteen seconds, exactly as ‘Mystic Mac’ predicted, and it is one of the historical moments in MMA history.

However, it would have been no small consolation for Jose Aldo that he made $2.54 million ($400k base salary + $2.1 million PPV share + $40k from sponsorships) for his UFC 194 bout against ‘The Notorious’. However, this amount was not enough to compensate for the loss of his title.

Jose Aldo’s last UFC payout

Jose Aldo’s last fight in the UFC was a unanimous decision loss against the official number one bantamweight title contender, Merab Dvalishvili in August 2022 at UFC 278. While the bout was an underwhelming affair, with Dvalishvili managing to hold and tire Aldo against the cage for two out of the three rounds, the fighters made a compelling amount for their main card appearance.

For this bout, the UFC’s first featherweight champion made a reported $421,000 in total, with a $400k base pay combined with $21k in sponsorship and compliance pay from the UFC’s current apparel partner, Venum. The Brazilian did not get a share of the PPV revenue from the card headlined by the shocking rematch between Leon Edwards, who knocked out then-champion Kamaru Usman in the final round with a brutal head kick despite having been dominated for the past four rounds.

Jose Aldo’s total UFC earnings and net worth

During his distinguished stint at the UFC, which has lasted nearly a decade and a half, he reached the Mount Rushmore of the featherweight division, Jose Aldo has made a cumulative $9 million in the world’s most successful and competitive mixed martial arts promotion.

As one of the biggest stars in the Las Vegas-based promotion at one point in time, many may expect him to have made more money. However, when Aldo was at the peak of his career, there was not as much money in the sport as there is today, a decade later. Surprisingly, he has had only two seven-figure purses in his UFC career. The first, as we have seen, against Conor McGregor, while the second, worth $1.1 million, came for his UFC 200 vacant featherweight title fight against Frankie Edgar in July 2016.

While the fighter may not be among the highest-paid fighters in the promotion, his record-breaking performances and unmatched resilience have ensured that the story of the UFC cannot be told without mentioning Jose Aldo. And that, perhaps, is worth more than any amount of money.