I am a boxing manager: if you have questions about the boxing biz, ask!

Dempset1234 has passed. I know- we were good friends and I worked with a couple of his fighters- that he took nothing on purses under $10,000, from 10k up, he took 10%. When Najera fought Verdejo on HBO, he bought me breakfast the day after a TR show in Texas.

 

Generally the rule of thumb has always been managers take 1/3 of the purse and trainers 10-15%. Or at least that’s the way it was. When a guy gets into truly big money, he usually negotiates that down to a flat fee or a cap (nobody is likely to give away $3.3M of a $10M purse and another $1.5M to a trainer).

Emanuel Steward was, at least at first when he was bringing up guys like Hearns and Hilmer Kenty, on a 50% deal as manager and trainer. Obviously that would be different with a Lewis or Klitschko because (a) they were already pretty well established commodities and (b) he was only training them, not managing.

Any situation may be different, such as the mentioned above “only take 10% and then only on purses of $10K or more,” but the reality is anyone doing it that way is operating at a deficit. The time, investment and effort put into getting a fighter to the $10K purse level is a lot, and most managers aren’t independently wealthy nor have the kind of outside income to do that without some return.

Truth is, most fighters never reach the $10K purse level. For every guy that gets to that (or above), there are dozens who had a handful of fights and then gave it up for whatever reason. And if you manage that guy, you’re given a lot of yourself for zero return, and you should be putting into him (or her) the same as you are for a guy who is world championship material.