Unaccomplished fighters that made the most money

Wilder may have made an upward of 75 million by the end of his career, and he hasn't done anything majorly impressive.

 

Dunno about that, but it's probably the worst I've been around for.

 

Ever? God, I have no idea. Right now?

An example of one worse is Gervonta Davis at 130. Or Daniel Roman at 122. Those are just two guys who fought at the same time as Wilder, who both made multiple successful defences. Caleb Plant honestly might have the worse reign right now.

 

Butterbean...

 

British Heavyweight Billy Walker was possibly the highest paid sportsman in the country in the 1960's. He earned £15,000 per fight from his debut onwards. That is over twice the Prime Minister's annual salary at the time.
Billy was painfully brave and was in some wildly exciting fights but lacked all but the most basic ability. He relied on heart and a huge punch.
He failed in British and European Title fights but he and his brother George, who also managed him, built a huge business empire from Billy's earnings.

 

That's a great answer. Boxing history has a few guys who've made a name for themselves with the general public as a novelty act who've probably done quite well financially.

I wonder how guys like Bruce Strauss or Reggie Strickland did, fighting multiple times a month, going down when the going got tough, and living to fight another day in another town?

 

Do you think either Ike Ibeabuchi or Andrew Golota make this list?

 

I've never really paid attention to purses that much. Ibeabuchi, I'd say, no. He wasn't around very long and while boxing fans appreciated him, he didn't have the rabid fan base that someone like Golota had. I'd suspect Golota did pretty well. I've heard he's a reasonably smart guy despite some of his in-the-ring action, and I think he married well. His purses were likely invested fairly well.

Anybody who can transcend the sport and become known by the general public, or a specific portion of it like Golota's Polish fans, will do better than great fighters the general public know nothing about.

 

Well Audley Harrison got a million pound deal for a TV channel to show his first 10 pro fights, not too bad financially i would say for a pro who never over achieved.
Harrison got a million for the 3 rounds annihilation by Haye and he threw something like one punch.

 

Bellew has done fantastically well out of the sport financially, and his earnings are hugely disproportionate to his talents. Very well marketed and knew how to sell himself, even transcending his field to land that Creed gig. There have been plenty of British fighters who have shown much higher pedigree in the ring and achieved a lot more than him, but who have earned peanuts in comparison and received only half as much fanfare.

Every title Bellew ever won - British, Commonwealth, European, Silver and World - was vacant at the time he claimed them. His record is incredibly thin for a fighter who somehow had world class status bestowed on him, and it's an indication of what an unfair business boxing is that Bellew, having vacated his Cruiserweight title and then cashed in beautifully at an opportune moment with the Haye fights, was still in a position where he could make Usyk travel and take the lion's share of the purse. This after Usyk had spent the previous couple of years systematically cleaning out the division and taking on all the dangerous Cruisers that Bellew wanted no part of.

Mind you, I'm not knocking Bellew for any of this. He's one of the relatively few who can say that he got one over on the sport, rather than the sport getting one over on him. He played the game brilliantly and took advantage of boxing's vagaries to retire a wealthy man with a few irons in the fire. And good on him for that.

 

As a boxer, Conor McGregor is the runaway winner.

His guarantee for his lone pro fight was $30M but it has been widely reported that he took home $100M to fight Mayweather.