According to Erik Paulson, Rickson Gracie’s pay demands from Japan’s PRIDE FC climbed substantially once it became clear how dominant he was in competition.
Paulson, who trained directly with the Gracie family in the late 1980s and helped broker Rickson’s entry into Japanese competition, said he sat in on the negotiations firsthand, recalling a meeting:
I got to sit in and listen to how he was going to fight in this tournament. And if he won, then his money would double.
He said, I’ll take 50 grand to fight and 50 to win. And then he goes, when I win, the next fight I’ll take a hundred and a hundred.
And then after he won the second tournament, he said, I’ll take a million and a million.
The figures kept rising as Rickson kept winning:
I don’t think Shooto had a million and a million to offer. PRIDE had something.
So then he started fighting and then he’s like, I’ll take 2 million and 2 million…
So he got paid a ton of money to fight.
Paulson said he was the one who originally connected the Gracie camp with Japanese promoters, inviting Rickson to compete in Shooto on three separate occasions before he finally accepted:
They ultimately wanted Rickson because he was supposed to be the best Gracie, the toughest.
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