It would be understandable to assume that once a fighter finds fame in the UFC that fortune will soon follow, and in some cases that is true, though it’s far from a hard-and-fast rule.
However, as you’ll read in this article, though most of the stars in this article made millions of dollars, they failed to hold on to the hard-fought fruits of their labor.
Diego Sanchez
Diego Sanchez is one of the longest serving fighters in the UFC and the former TUF season 1 winner has amassed over $3 million in disclosed earnings in the promotion over the years.
However, when he was at the height of his powers in the UFC, Sanchez got in with the wrong crowd, began partying excessively and was burning through his money at an alarming rate.
“‘Go big or go home.’ I used to say that,” Sanchez told BleacherReport. “I was addicted to that. The lifestyle, the fame. The girls. The parties.
“With that came a lot of people who didn’t really care about me. They were just leeches. Just very bad people. I had to learn a lot. I was very gullible.
“I trusted the wrong person with finances and the guy ended up breaking my bank. I lost my money in Ponzi schemes. If it wasn’t enough to be wasting a lot of it, one of my best friends totally done me dirty and wiped me out.”
Sanchez eventually sobered up, distanced himself from the bad influences in his life and continues to fight for the UFC.
