For the first time in his career, Stipe Miocic is ‘100% happy’ with his UFC pay

This Saturday, in the main event of the absurdly stacked UFC 226 card, UFC heavyweight champion Stipe Miocic will attempt to defend his title against reigning UFC light heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier.

From a competitive standpoint, this is far and away one of the biggest fights of Miocic’s illustrious career. According to the man himself, it’s also the biggest fights from a financial standpoint. This is good news, considering Miocic has been frustrated with his paydays in the past.

“Dana and I, we talked that stuff out and it worked out great,” Miocic told reporters at a media luncheon on Monday (via MMA Fighting).

“100 percent,” he added, when asked if his UFC 226 fight with Cormier represented the biggest payday of his fighting career thus far.

In the past Miocic has been frustrated not only with the pay, but also with the way he was promoted by the UFC — particularly ahead of his UFC 220 title fight with the massively hyped Francis Ngannou.

“A lot has changed,” Miocic explained. “I think it had a lot to do with the change in the company too, they were stuck in their transition. I’m just, I was stuck when they sold the company, they were looking for what’s good for them, but I understand that. They spent a lot of money, they spent four billion dollars it’s not like ‘ahh, sure guys.’ it’s a little bit different than that. They made it right and it was all good.”

Stipe Miocic enters his UFC 226 title fight with Daniel Cormier having recently set the record for the most consecutive title fights by a UFC heavyweight champion, at three-straight. These defenses have come against Francis Ngannou, Junior dos Santos and Alistair Overeem. Miocic won the title with a first-round drubbing of Fabricio Werdum.

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 7/3/2018.