Hbo fight purses low$$$$$$

Rungvisai is a rich man in his home country

 

How does Cuadras only get 25k?

 

It has pissed me off for so long that HBO never entered sub-135. They could have had "SuperFly 1" back in 2010 but they were busy paying Andre Berto 1.4 million to fight Freddy Hernandez and similar outrageous purses for mismatches that didn't even feature an elite tier boxer. Having a good committed promoter is almost as important or more than having top notch skills. HBO has been largely a disaster for the last decade, when one looks at what they spend, what fights they put on, and what other much better and more deserving fights they could have had for much much cheaper.

 

Have you seen what they paid Roman Gonzalez when he was undefeated #1 p4p 4 weight champion with 15 title fights under his belt? He got 600k for Rungvisai 2, 550k for Rungvisai 1, 400k for Cuadras, 250k for Viloria, 300k for Arroyo.

The smaller your weightclass the less you get paid. 3 years ago I tried to put together a thread about record purses by division to illustrate this fact and here's what I came up with.

Heavyweight
Mike Tyson vs Evander Holyfield II 30,000,000
Cruiserweight
Hill vs Maske 1,500,000
Light Heavyweight
Ray Leonard vs Donny Lalonde 15,000,000
Super Middleweight
tie
Froch vs Groves II 13,000,000 ?
Leonard vs Hearns II
Middleweight
De La Hoya vs Hopkins 30,000,000
Junior Middleweight
De La Hoya vs Mayweather 52,000,000 (after television cut)
or
Mayweather vs Alvarez 41,500,000
Welterweight
Mayweather vs Maidana 32,000,000
Light Welterweight
Pacquiao vs Hatton 12,000,000
Lightweight
Pacquiao vs Diaz 3,000,000 ?
Super Featherweight
Pacquiao vs Morales III 3,000,000
Featherweight
Hamed vs Barrera 6,500,000
Super Bantamweight
Donaire vs Rigondeaux 1,300,000
Bantamweight
Donaire vs Narvaez 725,000
Flyweight
?
Junior Flyweight
Carbajal vs Gonzalez II 1,000,000

This has always been true. When Eder Jofre fought Fighting Harada in 1965 he made 30k to Harada's 2.5k. This was when Jofre was arguably the #1 p4p fighter in the world and had a 50 fight winning streak. Even with inflation his purse would only be 237k today, and I've heard that he sometimes flew around the world to defend his titles for 7k and hotel expenses.

Too Sharp and Ricardo Lopez were semi-stars in the 90s but I don't believe either one of them ever made more than 400k in one purse.

That's why it makes so much sense to have these Superfly type tournaments at the lower weights. You can get every major fighter in the top 10 on one card for a million dollars. Did you notice how HBO's boxing promo doesn't have stars like Pacquiao, Lomachenko, or Crawford in them anymore and are now full of faceless nobodies? HBO got tired of paying for stars and now wants to invest in cheaper prospects and lighter weights.

 

People just have a hard time supporting and caring about the lower weight class fighters. Once you get to like 118 or 122 and below those guys end up being so damn tiny. They don't even look like man sized fighters anymore. It gives off the impression that you're looking at a kid fighting.

At 126 and 130 the guys are still definitely tiny, but man sized. A guy like Lomachenko is a little man, but still big enough that guys in the bar can't imagine themselves standing a chance against them.

Part of the appeal of the HW division is everybody knows for real that this dude right here is gonna whoop your ass big time in a fight. And you and anyone else you know doesn't have a chance either.

 

May 8th 2004, I remember saying something to my roommate along the lines of "Bantamweight, what is that 126 lbs? Do they ride heavyweights into the ring like little jockeys?"

"You should watch the fight," he said. "It was pretty good." That was Pacquiao vs Marquez I.

Since then, I've respected the lower weights. Many a time in the intervening years some of the best fights have been flyweight fights. Gonzalez vs Rungvisai I, Rodriguez vs Takayama, Segura vs Marquez I, Gonzalez vs Estrada, Yaegashi vs Porpramook, Marquez vs Conception I, Calderon vs Segura I, etc. It's not the size of the dog in the fight. It's the size of the fight in the dog.

 

Average income where Gonzalez comes from is 400 dollars a year. Nicaragua is the poorest country in the western hemisphere. But we don't base fighters pay on how poor the countries they come from are. We are supposed to pay them what they are worth, a fair percentage of the profits that their fights make after expenses.

 

Do you think this card brought in the same money that fighters in the 600-800k purse range brought in?

 

Home Buttocks Office is cheap!

 

Might be a case of international money not being in their purse and long term exposure leading to bigger pay days. Raise your profile with wins and the bigger money will come

 

Fighter gets only less than 90k for a 250k purse?

 

Some boxers get massively overpaid, some massively underpaid, and popularity usually beats skill level in boxing (in more that one way sadly).

But like mentioned, it's very possible that besides the purses there's a lot of additional money. Foreign TV and sponsor deals might bag them a whole lot of money.

 

One would hope for that to be the case.

The entire cards purse was a little over 500k. It would be ridiculous to think that between HBO, the gate, sponsors and foreign TV rights they only made a small profit.
Fingers crossed for bonuses.