UFC 249 Medical Suspensions And Salaries

UFC returned this past weekend with UFC 249. The first UFC card in almost two months went down in the empty VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville, Florida.

The big winners on the night were Justin Gaethje, who put on a masterful performance to stop Tony Ferguson in the fifth round of the main event, to win the UFC interim lightweight title; Henry Cejudo, who defended his bantamweight title against the former champion Dominick Cruz; and Francis Ngannou, who only needed 20 seconds to knockout Jairzinho Rozenstruick.

Gaethje is expected to fight Khabib Nurmagomedov later in the year in a lightweight unification bout. Cejudo shocked the world by announcing his retirement immediately after his win in the co-main event. Ngannou is now in limbo, as we wait for the Stipe Miocic vs Daniel Cormier trilogy fight. And Dana White promised Bryce Mitchell the Reebok cargo shorts he’s been begging for, after another highly impressive performance against Charles Rosa.

We now know the medical suspensions to have come out of UFC 249, as well as the fighters’ purses.

Let’s start off with the medical suspensions. Eight of the fighters on the card could receive a potential 180 day suspension, including Anthony Pettis and Fabricio Werdum. While five fighters received no suspensions at all. Including Gaethje, which going into his fight with Ferguson, you would have thought would be impossible.

Full list of medical suspensions from UFC 249:

Sam Alvey: Suspended 180 days or until cleared by a physician; 30 days mandatory

Ryan Spann: Suspended 180 days or until cleared by a physician; 30 days mandatory

Charles Rosa: Suspended 30 days

Bryce Mitchell: No suspension

Niko Price: Suspended 180 days or until cleared by a physician; 60 days mandatory

Vicente Luque: Suspended 30 days

Michelle Waterson: Suspended 30 days

Carla Esparza: No suspension

Fabricio Werdum: Suspended 180 days or until cleared by a physician

Aleksei Oleinik: Suspended 180 days or until cleared by a physician

‘Cowboy’ Cerrone: Suspended 30 days

Anthony Pettis: Suspended 180 days or until cleared by a physician; 30 days mandatory

Yorgan De Castro: Suspended 180 days or until cleared by a physician; 30 days mandatory

Greg Hardy: No suspension

Jeremy Stephens: Suspended 60 days

Calvin Kattar: Suspended 180 days or until cleared by a physician; 60 days mandatory

Jairzinho Rozenstruik: Suspended 60 days

Francis Ngannou: No suspension

Dominick Cruz: Suspended 45 days

Henry Cejudo: Suspended 45 days

Tony Ferguson: Total suspension pending results; 60 days mandatory

Justin Gaethje: No suspension


When it comes to fight purses, Ferguson was the big winner, taking home $550,000. While his victor, Gaethje, took home $450,000. This included $100,000 bonuses, for his Performance and Fight of the Night bonus awards.

This is the list of fight purses from UFC 249 (via Jed I. Goodman), which include both the win bonuses and Performance bonuses, but don’t include the Reebok fighter kit pay:

Justin Gaethje ($450,000) def. Tony Ferguson ($550,000)

Henry Cejudo ($350,000) def. Dominick Cruz ($300,000)

Francis Ngannou ($310,000) def. Jairzinho Rozenstruik ($80,000)

Calvin Kattar ($116,100) def. Jeremy Stephens ($46,900)*

Greg Hardy ($180,000) def. Yorgan de Castro ($12,000)

Anthony Pettis ($310,000) def. ‘Cowboy’ Cerrone ($200,000)

Aleksei Oleinik ($160,000) def. Fabricio Werdum ($100,000)

Carla Esparza ($102,000) def. Michelle Waterson ($60,000)

Vicente Luque ($180,000) def. Niko Price ($57,000)

Bryce Mitchell ($54,000) def. Charles Rosa ($24,000)

Ryan Spann ($50,000) def. Sam Alvey ($65,000)

* Stephens gave 30% of his purse to Kattar for missing weight by 4.5lbs


Are there any medical suspensions or fighter purses that surprised you?

You can check out how the MMA world reacted to UFC 249 here:


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