UFC Sacramento: what the last two cards in this building paid
UFC Sacramento fighter pay: Urijah Faber took 25 percent of the 2019 purse from the undercard. What CSAC disclosed then, and what we estimate tonight.
The UFC has run four events in Sacramento in its entire history. Tonight is the fourth, and the third one was seven years ago.
That gap is the interesting part. California is not a hard state to promote in, the Golden 1 Center is a modern downtown arena that has already hosted two of these cards, and the region has produced a steady supply of UFC fighters. The company still went from July 14, 2019 to August 22, 2026 without booking a date there.
What makes the return worth writing about is that California is one of the last commissions that still publishes what fighters were paid. Two of the three Sacramento cards have full disclosure filed with the California State Athletic Commission, and those documents are the closest thing this sport has to an honest look at its own pay structure. So before tonight's card, here is what the last two in this building actually paid.
The receipts from the last two
UFC Fight Night: de Randamie vs Ladd, July 2019, was the most recent. Twenty-five disclosed purses: $824,000 in show money, $510,000 in win bonuses, $1,334,000 total.
One man took a quarter of it.
Urijah Faber was not the headliner. He was booked in a featured bout, he knocked out Ricky Simon in the first round, and he collected $170,000 to show and $170,000 to win. That is $340,000, or 25.5 percent of everything the commission recorded that night, paid to a fighter in the middle of the card.
The woman whose name was on the poster made $90,000. Germaine de Randamie headlined, stopped Aspen Ladd in the first round, and took $45,000 plus a matching win bonus. Aspen Ladd, on the losing end of it, made $35,000 flat with no win bonus to collect.
Below them the card thins out fast. Darren Elkins at $62,000. Josh Emmett at $49,000 and $49,000. Julianna Pena and Andre Fili at $40,000 each with matching bonuses. And then the floor: Benito Lopez, Brianna Fortino, John Allan and Wellington Turman all at $12,000 to show, three of them with $12,000 to win, one without.
The 2016 card in the same building tells the same story with the same protagonist. UFC Fight Night: VanZant vs Waterson disclosed 27 purses totaling $1,191,000. Faber topped it again at $160,000 and $160,000, again from a spot below the main event, on the way to a decision over Brad Pickett. Sage Northcutt was next at $60,000. Nobody else on the card cleared $40,000 to show.
Two cards, seven years apart, and the same fighter was the highest-paid man in the building both times, neither time as the headliner.
What tonight looks like
Nothing has been filed yet for tonight, and nothing will be for a while. What we can do is estimate, which is what our salary work does off the disclosed record and the contract patterns it reveals.
On that basis the top of tonight's card sits in a narrower band than 2019 did. We estimate Serghei Spivac as the highest-paid fighter in the building at roughly $147,000 to show, with Roman Dolidze around $141,000 and the two headliners, Anthony Hernandez and Gregory Rodrigues, around $133,000 each. Reinier de Ridder comes in near $118,000.
Notice what is missing: the outlier. In 2019 one purse was four times the size of the headliner's. Tonight the top five estimates fit inside a $30,000 spread. Part of that is matchmaking: nobody on tonight's card is the draw Faber was in this building. The rest is a question the filing will settle.
Whether the floor has crept up enough is the question the filing will eventually answer. In 2019 the bottom of a Sacramento card was $12,000 and $12,000. Seven years of inflation on that number is not a rhetorical exercise, it is a document that CSAC will publish, and we will report it against these estimates when it lands.
The one fighter from here
There is a Sacramento fighter on this card, and she opens it.
Elise Reed was born in Sacramento. She is 8-5 as a professional, she has not fought since May 2025 when Denise Gomes knocked her out, and after fifteen months away she draws Shanelle Dyer, who is 7-1 and has won her last four with two knockouts among them. The market has priced it accordingly: Dyer at -900, Reed at +600 across the books we track.
That is the shape of a homecoming for most fighters. Not the poster, not the featured bout, not $340,000. The first fight of the afternoon, against a favorite the books make a nine-in-ten proposition.
Faber got the other version of it twice, and the sheets say what that was worth. They also say how narrow the door is. On a card of twenty-six fighters, one of them is from this city, and she is fighting before most of the building has sat down.
UFC Fight Night: Hernandez vs Rodrigues runs tonight at the Golden 1 Center, prelims from 2 p.m. PT and the main card at 5 p.m. PT on Paramount+. Full card and results at /events/ufc-2026-08-22.