UFC 203 went down in Cleveland, Ohio this past Saturday, and it was a wild event. The pay-per-view card marked the first time the UFC had travelled to Cleveland. The star power was not up there with the likes of UFC 202 or 196, but it delivered nonetheless.
Following a bizarre week filled with mishaps and injuries, UFC 203 did well to pull it off. An entertaining evening of scraps culminated in a thrilling main event. Stipe Miocic took on Alistair Overeem in a heavyweight war for the ages.
Miocic Crumbled Overeem
Stipe Miocic defended his heavyweight title with a highly entertaining knockout against Alistair Overeem. The eyes of the fans were already glued to the screen after a number of notable fights earlier on the card.
Preceding the main event were heavyweights Fabricio Werdum and Travis Browne. The big Hawaiian ‘Hapa’ broke his finger during a gruesome moment in the co-main event. Werdum suffered a nasty eye poke too. Another huge story on UFC 203 was the debut of CM Punk.
CM Punk Lost, But Also Won
CM Punk lost in his debut that had taken 18 months to occur, and in pretty dominant fashion too. Mickey Gall wasted no time in taking Punk to the mat before choking him for the first round win.
Punk was never even in the fight. Gall made him look like a 3rd grader taking on a college bully, it was somewhat embarrassing to watch. Where CM Punk scored a huge win is in the salaries though.
Here are the disclosed pay checks for UFC 203:
Punk Banks $500K !?!
Yep, CM Punk made half a million bucks for getting smashed to pieces within minutes. You can’t argue with his obvious drawing power, but surely this is a smack to the face of even rookie fighters.
The more experienced guys on the card, aside from Alistair Overeem and Stipe Miocic, did not even make close to CM Punk’s salary for UFC 203. As a result, there’s been an angry backlash from fighters on social media.
Here are the Twitter reactions from the fighters who simply couldn’t believe how much CM Punk made. Thanks to MMA Fight Night Live on Facebook for the info:
