(Photo credit: Esther Lin/Showtime) By Allan Fox: Floyd Mayweather Jr. (45-0, 26 KO’s) will be getting a base purse of $32 million for this Saturday’s fight against WBA welterweight champion Marcos Maidana (35-3, 31 KO’s), according to Mlive. Mayweather will end up with higher figure than this once the pay-per-view receipts are totaled. The Mayweather-Maidana fight is expected to bring in over 1 million PPV buys, although many people believe it’ll do less than that figure.
Mayweather has the ideal opponent in Maidana and the perfect fight date for the fight to bring in big PPV numbers though due to the fight being staged on Cinco de Mayo weekend.
Mayweather’s guaranteed purse is considerably less than the $41.5 million guaranteed purse that he received for his mega-fight against Saul “Canelo” Alvarez last September. Maidana will be getting a guaranteed $1.5 million plus a percentage from the PPV receipts from their Showtime PPV fight.
The $32 million that Mayweather will be getting in a base purse is roughly the same that he received in his fights against Robert Guerrero and Miguel Cotto. It would be surprising if the Mayweather-Maidana fight brings in the same PPV numbers as the Cotto fight though, because that fight card had Canelo on the undercard and it did very well. This Saturday’s career has some big stars in Amir Khan and Adrien Broner on the undercard, but they’re not as popular as Canelo and they’re not matched up against popular opponents.
What’s interesting here is that Khan will be receiving $1.5 million, which is the same amount of Maidana. That’s seems kind of odd and out of place for Khan to be getting as much as Mayweather’s opponent given that Khan is in the co-feature bout, and that he’s lost 2 out of his last 4 fights. Collazo will get $350,000.
Broner is facing a fighter named Carlos Molina, a former lightweight who was knocked out by Khan in 2012. The Broner-Molina fight hasn’t generated a great deal of interest from fans because it’s seen as a mismatch, which is what it’s supposed to be given that it’s a confidence builder for Broner. Khan is facing Luis Collazo, and that’s an opponent that mainly older hardcore boxing fans recognize. Collazo is seen by some boxing fans as opponent being brought to give Khan a victory over a name from the past; much in the same way that Khan was matched against an old Marco Antonio Barrera when the Mexican warrior was on the downside of his career, and fighting above his old weight class.
Having Broner and Khan on the card will help the PPV numbers, but considering that neither of their fights are PPV worthy affairs, it’s not likely that having them on the card will have much of an impact to the overall PPV numbers. Golden Boy Promotions should have focused on getting one of them to take on a worthy opponent in order to get fans interested.
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