As 2016 concluded Fight to Win Pro CEO Seth Daniels set a rather lofty goal: to hit $1million in fighter pay by the end of 2017. To an outsider, such a number might seem ridiculous. 

After all, while some professional jiu-jitsu athletes might make tens of thousands of dollars in a single fight, the promotion companies that put them on usually only do a few fights per year. 

The idea of a company as young as Fight to Win actually achieving a million dollars in fighter payout is worth raising an eyebrow at.

Or at least, it was.

We’re not even three months into the year, and with fifteen percent of their schedule already in the books, Fight to Win Pro has reached 16.8 percent of their $1 million goal. In other words, they’ve paid $168,575 to athletes, from tiny but fierce orange belts to seasoned black belts. 



Their most recent show in Denver saw them paying $22,100 in commissions and salaries, and before that, F2W Pro 25 in Scottsdale, Arizona, paid out $35,985. And that’s not including the MusclePharm sponsorship that gives thousands of dollars to the fighter who wins submission of the night.

Even though they’re right on track to meet their target, Daniels says that Fight to Win Pro isn’t about to slow down. They have a knack for breaking even at their shows, and doing so allows them to double the fighters’ base pay. If they can do that at 75 percent of the shows they put on, they’ll easily meet the goal that many have believed was too high. 

Anyone can pay fighters money if they have it. The trick is to be able to have your business survive while paying the commissions and salaries; that is our goal.

After a wildly successful 2016 that resulted in fighters being paid a whopping $400k, it’s safe to say that nothing is going to stand in this team’s way of continuing to make their stage the one to be on if you want to make money doing jiu-jitsu. 

They’re already well on their way to the $1 million mark, and Daniels is determined to make sure they don’t falter as they continue towards setting even more records in the world of professional jiu-jitsu. “We will hit it this year, even if I have to do fifty events.”