Larry Holme's Pay Days?

The fight against Cooney was for a while the highest earning fight in history, although I don't know the number. Holmes got the same amount as Cooney though despite being champion.

 

I thought it was 60 dollars.



Imagine what that'd be corrected for the inflation though.

 

I think he earned some 17 million dollars for the Holyfield fight, but thats just based on memory. He actually only got like 3 million for the Tyson fight, and said that he was donating it all to charity.

 

He got 3.8 million for Tyson, 10 million for Cooney, and would have gotten I think 30 million for Coetzee in 84, but the promoter got busted like a month before fight night. I know back in 1999 George Foreman finnally agreed to fight Larry, but the promoter didn't pay something on time and both Holmes and Foreman got a million just for signing. He got 63 bucks for his first fight, and I think it was $10,000 for the Roy Williams fight.

 

He made around $7 million for Holyfield.

 

I don't know the history there but, $30 million dollars sounds drastically high for such a match. Although Coetzee may well have been a better fighter than Cooney, his marketablility as an attraction didn't seem to warrant such high numbers.

 

The Coetzee fight fell through, and therein lies a clue as to why the figures projected "seem too high", or vice versa.

 

Holmes was going to receive something like $12 million for the fight. The promoters massively over-estimated his clout at the box office (which was in the "couldn't draw flies to ****" league) and pulled out.

 

The one promoter was Howard Smith (I think that's what the name was) and he offered Larry 30 million for the fight, but King found out and ended the whole thing, and Larry was a bit skeptical him self. Not much longer after their meeting, Smith got busted. It turned out he was stealing money from the bank.

Another set back with the fight is Coetzee wanted the fight in South Africa, and Larry wanted it in Vegas.

 

I don't know why, but 8 million came into my mind. I could be wrong though.

 

I don't know how much the purses were for Holmes-Ali, but sadly neither man received anywhere near as much as they were originally promised from what I recall hearing. The horrific beating that Muhammad took wasn't worth the paycheck.