We all know that Mayweather holds the record for highest paid boxer in a single fight. I think Tyson is the highest paid heavyweight. But what about Cruiserweight down through Strawweight? Who have been the big earners historically at say light heavyweight, and what can a bantamweight expect to earn? 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
There is something to that. And if you want to dig up the old fighters purses of bygone eras you are welcome to. Adjusted for inflation they are pretty decent paydays, but they still aren't as big as what we've been seeing in the last twenty years. Tyson's purses are probably bigger than Mayweathers or De La Hoyas but that's about the only difference. Ali would get about twenty million a fight. Gene Tunney got the equivalent of 14 million dollars for the Dempsey rematch. Joe Louis got the equivalent of 7.5 million for fighting Billy Conn. Marciano earned the equivalent of 4 million for fighting Moore. Robinson made the equivalent of 4 million for fighting Basilio. Corbett earned 1.1 million to fight Sullivan. Jack Johnson got 3 million to fight Jeffries. All of those are the adjusted figures.
I guess the 1.5 million purse bid by Don King for Huck vs Afolabi III was the highest bid in cruiserweight ever. Don King wasn't able to stage the fight, so the second highest bid (Sauerland $944,444) came in place. For comparision: No one was once interested to bid the minimum bid of $100.000 for the IBF title eliminator ... a rematch between Steve Cunningham and Guillermo Jones. A really good purse for a cruiserweight have been the $1.5 million that Virgil Hill collected for giving Henry Maske a rematch ... but I don't know Maske's purse. To me the fight looked like Hill tried to get a draw and lure Maske into a third fight ... as Hill was a lot stronger in his next fight (against Arslan).
im pretty sure if you add inflation Canelo vs Mayweather is below ODLH vs Mayweather. was there any comments on that subject?
Douglas Holyfield was the biggest purse at Heavyweight $32,100,000. And the biggest winning purse bid of all time or at least it says so on boxrec. Over 58 mil in 2014 according to data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl or over 56 http://www.westegg.com/inflation/
Douglas-Holyfield was the highest succesfull purse bid. The highest purse bid of all time was for Holyfield against Tyson in 1991. Dan Duva of Main Events bid a record $50.101 million to win the promotional rights. Top Rank bid $40.1 million and Cedric Kushner offered $39.9 million. But Tyson declined the fight, because of the split which would have given him "only" 25 percent of the money. The sides worked out a different deal for the fight but Tyson wasn't able to fight. First, he was injured ... then he went to prison for r ape
Maske almost certainly earned more. Back in the 90s he was making about 25mil per year, so you get the picture.
Numbers are way off the Tyson Holyfield 2 purse wasn't 30m Holyfield alone got 35m for that fight and iron mike 30 making the purse 65
