Bare-Knuckle Purse Database: Official Commission Payrolls
Every bare-knuckle purse in this table was released by a US state athletic regulator — the New Mexico Regulation and Licensing Department and the California State Athletic Commission — and every row links to the published report of that release. 46 fighters, 2 cards, 2022–2024.
Commission-released means the figure comes from the payroll held by the state regulator that sanctioned the card, not from the promoter, the fighter or a pundit. That is also why most bare-knuckle pay is missing here: few commissions make purses public, and a “reported” or estimated number, however plausible, cannot be checked against a record. Those figures live in the fighter pay comparison, clearly labelled.
Commission payrolls
2
Fighter purses
46
Highest disclosed
$600,000
Median purse
$5,500
Highest: Mike Perry, BKFC KnuckleMania IV (2024-04-27). 33 of 46 disclosed purses are under $10,000; 5 are six figures. No card in the database disclosed a separate win bonus.
THE PAYROLLS
Cards with a released payroll
· Rio Rancho Events Center, Rio Rancho (Albuquerque area), NM
BKFC 28: Ferea vs. Starling
Released by: New Mexico Regulation and Licensing Department
Fighters
22
Sum of purses
$210,500
Median
$4,000
Under $10k
18 / 22
Payouts released by the New Mexico Regulation and Licensing Department (RLD) and received by MMA Junkie (Matthew Wells and Nolan King); the full list was republished by Bloody Elbow and BJPenn.com.
MMA Junkie: "All payouts consisted of flat purses – meaning no win bonuses."
Disclosed figures do not include any bonuses the promotion may pay on top (the card's Performance and Knockout of the Night awards are not in the payroll).
Stated card total: $210,500 · matches our rows “Total disclosed pay for BKFC 28 athletes: $210,500” — MMA Junkie (via Yahoo Sports) Equals the sum of the 22 rows below to the dollar.
List of disclosed payouts obtained by MMA Junkie from California State Athletic Commission executive director Andy Foster on fight day, republished by Sportskeeda, MiddleEasy, MMA Mania and BJPenn.com.
Sportskeeda: "Instead of receiving show money and win money, all 24 competitors on the card received a flat price, with five of them taking home six-figure salaries."
Sportskeeda: "The listed sums exclude finish or discretionary bonuses, sponsorship money, and side letter payments". MMA Mania adds that they do not include deductions for insurance and taxes.
Stated card total: $1,369,000 · matches our rows “California State Athletic Commission figures show BKFC's Los Angeles event paid $1.369 million in combined guaranteed purses across 12 fights.” — Boxing News (citing The Ring) Equals the sum of the 24 rows below to the dollar.
Note: MMA Junkie (as quoted by MMA Mania) put the low figure down to "various advances and deductions". The Sportster prints $5,000; every other outlet checked, and the commission card total, confirm $500.
Note: MMA Mania and BJPenn.com print the same $7,500 under the name "Frank Alvarez"; FanSided prints $7,000. $7,500 is the figure that reconciles with the commission card total.
“None (flat)” = the commission disclosed one flat purse with no separate win money. Purses exclude discretionary bonuses, sponsorship and PPV points. Results link to each card's results source above.
METHODOLOGY
How this was compiled
A row is admitted only when a published source states the fighter's specific purse and attributes it to an athletic-commission payroll release (or is the commission document itself). Figures that are reported, estimated, or stated by a promoter or fighter are excluded, however credible. Nothing is inferred, averaged or rounded. Every figure was re-checked against its source page on the date shown, and where outlets disagree the row notes it and the figure is cross-checked against the commission's card total.
Admitted: a published page that names the fighter, prints the figure, and attributes the list to the athletic commission's payroll release.
Excluded: pre-fight purse estimates, salary-tracker sites, “according to sources” figures, promoter or fighter claims, and cards whose pay was reported but never released (for example BKFC 41 and BKFC 56). Gloved boxing cards run by bare-knuckle promoters are out of scope.
Conflicts: where outlets print different figures, the row carries a note naming the disagreement, and the rows are cross-checked against any published card total. All 2 cards reconcile to the dollar.
What a purse is not: the disclosed figure is the purse on the commission's payroll. It excludes discretionary and performance bonuses, sponsorship, PPV points and side letters, and it does not show what the fighter keeps after taxes, insurance and camp costs.
The database grows only when a commission releases another bare-knuckle payroll. Most bare-knuckle cards run in states that do not publish pay, which is why 2 cards is the honest count, not a sample. For how we source and correct everything on this site, see our editorial methodology.
Last checked: 2026-11-03 · every row re-opened against its source on that date
Quoting a single purse? Cite the original payroll report linked in its row as well — this page structures the commission releases; it does not replace them. To point at one card, link its anchor (for example #bkfc-28).
LICENSE
Free to republish
This compilation is licensed CC BY 4.0 — free to republish with a link to this page as attribution.
No permission request needed. Keep the commission name and the date with any figure you quote.