Unfortunately ufc and WWE aren't too different from each other. No matter how good a fighter is, if they aren't bringing in numbers, it's gonna be a bad payday.
If you look at ufc fight stats, 500,000 for a championship level fight sounds fair to me unless you can bring in crowds consistently.
Ive always enjoyed mma, and as a martial art enthusiast, I really appreciate fights. For the vast majority of people however, you're going to find that they don't understand fighting and won't be entertained without huge knockouts or a lot of gore and blood.
My solution to this is to try an alternate approach and split the 3 round system is to striking, grappling and then mma. It would make things a lot easier for people to understand and appreciate and therefor draw crowds.
RE: UFC in war over fair Salaries