Purses: Wilder $900K, Washington $250K

By Boxing News - 02/25/2017 - Comments

Image: Purses: Wilder $900K, Washington $250K

By Jim Dower: WBC heavyweight champion Deontay “Bronze” Bomber” Wilder (37-0, 36 KOs) will be getting a purse of $900,000 for his title defense tonight against Gerald Washington (18-0-1, 12 KOs) at the Legacy Arena in Birmingham, Alabama. Washington will be getting a little less than Wilder with his purse being $250,000. That’s not bad money for a challenger with no big fight experience.

Wilder’s paydays should go up after the Washington fight. He could face Anthony Joshua next. Wilder I 31 now, and he needs to upgrade the level of his opposition for him to get the big money that we’re seeing from Joshua. The knock on Wilder is he’s been playing it safe in taking easy voluntary defenses of his World Boxing Council title since he captured the belt in January 2015.

Wilder-Washington will be televised on Premier Boxing Champions on Fox tonight.

This is a good test to see how well the 6’7” Wilder does against a fighter the same height as him. Wilder needs to show that he can bowl over Washington, because he’s going to need to be able to let his hands go when he faces Joshua if he’s to have a chance of winning the fight.
In undercard purses, junior middleweight Jarrett Hurd (19-0, 13 KOs) will be receiving a purse of $125,000 for his fight for the vacant IBF 154 lb. title against Tony Harrison (24-1, 20 KOs).

Harrison will be receiving $125,000 as well. The winner of the contest will be the new IBF junior middleweight champion. Hurd has good power and he throws a lot of punches. The 26-year-old Harrison was recently stopped by Willie Nelson in the 9th round in July 2015. Harrison has won his last three fights since then, but against weak opposition. That’s the real knock on Harrison. He’s got great boxing skills, but he’s spent his first six years of his pro career facing weak opposition instead of the talented fighters in the division. Harrison looked in shook in his fight against Nelson when he started to get resistance from him. Up until that fight, Harrison had fought a lot of guys that just showed up and did very little.

Former heavyweight title challenger Dominic Breazeale (17-1, 15 KOs) is getting a purse of $175,000 for his fight against Izuagbe Ugonoh (17-0, 14 KOs). The 30-year-old Ugonoh’s purse for the fight is just $75,000. Breazeale did not look in great shape at yesterday’s weigh-in with him coming in at a very soft looking 263 pounds. That’s a career high for Breazeale, and he looks like he didn’t train as hard as he should have. That could be bad news for Breazeale, because Ugonoh can punch hard with his right hand, and he’s got excellent hand speed and size at 6’5”.

Ugonoh looked in great shape last Friday in weighing in at 230 lbs. Breazeale lost his last fight to IBF heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua by a 7th round knockout last June. Breazeale weighed in at 255 lbs. for the Joshua fight. It might be that Breazeale let himself go a little after the Joshua fight, because he’s not nearly as toned and trim now as he was for that fight. It wouldn’t be surprising at all if Breazeale loses tonight.