(Photo credit: Esther Lin/Showtime) By Dan Ambrose: American heavyweight challenger Deontay Wilder (32-0, 32 KOs) will be getting the biggest purse on Saturday night in the Stiverne-Wilder card against WBC heavyweight champion Bermane Stiverne (24-1-1, 21 KOs) at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Wilder, who is promoted by adviser Al Haymon, will be getting a cool $1 million for the first title shot of his career. For his part, Stiverne, 36, will be collecting $910,000. It’s not a bad payday for Stiverne, who is finally tasting the good money as he nears 40.
Stiverne has been toiling away for 10 years as a pro, and it’s just now that he’s starting to get the good money. Whether that will continue to be that way after Saturday night depends a lot on how well he does against the 29-year-old Wilder.
WBC super bantamweight champion Leo Santa Cruz (28-0-1, 16 KOs) will be getting $750,000 for his mismatch against unknown fringe contender Jesus Ruiz (33-5-5, 22 KOs). As for Ruiz, he’ll only be getting $50,000. Santa Cruz’s manager is Haymon, so that kind of explains why he’s getting such a nice payday.
This is the second straight mismatch for Santa Cruz, who in his last fight he fought his former sparring partner Manuel Roman in a fight that lasted only 2 rounds before Santa Cruz knocked him out. This was a horrible fight and probably shouldn’t have been sanctioned by the World Boxing Council. This fight doesn’t rate as the co-feature in my view. I see it as the type of fight that should be off television as the first fight of the night before the competitive match-ups that actually have meaning. This is just another freebee bout for Santa Cruz where he face some over-matched guy without a prayer. It’s just a bad, bad match-up and it weighs down the card.
The Santa Cruz-Ruiz fight is just as bad, and it’s funny to see Santa Cruz spending time trying to build Ruiz up in the same manner he did with Manuel Roman.
“I like opponents to come ready so it makes for a better fight,” Santa Cruz said earlier Thursday at the final press conference with Ruiz. “I hope it is a war and we steal the show.”
I somehow doubt that Santa Cruz vs. Ruiz will steal the show from the Wilder vs. Stiverne fight, because the Santa Cruz-Ruiz fight is too much of a mismatch to steal anything. It’s bad enough the fight was made in the first place. This is Danny Garcia vs. Rod Salka all over again, and Showtime should have put their foot down after the previous mismatch involving Santa Cruz and his former sparring partner.
“I’m here for the title. I’m not here for the check or to take a dive. I’ll give it all I have,” Ruiz said.
Look for the fight to last 2-3 rounds at best. Ruiz is a punching bag with arms, and this is going to be a horrible mismatch.
“Per NSAC purses for #StiverneWilder: Stiverne 910k, Wilder 1M, Santa Cruz 750k, Ruiz 50k, Imam 45k, Maldonado 50k. #boxing,” Dan Rafael said on his twitter.
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