In two fights, Georges St. Pierre could pay to rebuild Steve Austin and still have $4 million leftover.
That's according to UFC color commentator Joe Rogan, who talked about the kind of bread "Rush" was baking as the promotion's reigning welterweight champion and uncrowned "king" of pay-per-view (PPV) buys before hanging up his gloves late last year.
"When you look at pay, there's a pay that's listed as far as the purse you get after the fight. That doesn't take into account a lot of factors. There's a lot of things they want to remain private. You're not just getting paid that amount. Some people are. But when a guy is selling tickets, a big name fighter, there's a lot of factors in there. Incentives, pieces of pay per view. Georges St. Pierre was making $5 million a fight. He's making a lot of fucking money. He's got sponsors, Gatorade, all this other stuff. Other revenue coming in. Georges St. Pierre made a fuck load of money fighting."
Skip to 17:00 mark.
Thanks to David St. Martin for transcribing.
If St. Pierre was making $5 million per fight, then you can imagine what UFC was making, which lends credence to the argument that ZUFFA will cave to the French-Canadian's demands in an effort to (eventually) bring him back to the Octagon (see those comments here).
Assuming "Rush" can recover from his physical (as well as his mental) maladies.