By Jason Kim: Former IBF welterweight champion Joshua Clottey (35-4, 20 KO’s) is reportedly looking for a big money fight, but the problem is there’s no one out there that will guarantee him a big enough payday for him to get off the couch and start fighting again. According to Dan Rafael, Top Rank promoter Bob Arum says Clottey isn’t interested in fighting for less than $500,000.
This is after the 33-year-old Clottey made $1.25 million in his one-sided 12 round unanimous decision loss to Manny Pacquiao last March at the Cowboy Stadium, in Arlington, Texas. Besides the $1.25 million, Clottey made another $1.25 million because of the “upside of $3 per home kicked in at 300,000 buys.”
That’s big money for Clottey, and I can’t blame him for not wanting to fight unless he’s getting big money because he really doesn’t need to fight ever again if he’s careful with the money he made. However, it’s almost inconceivable to see Clottey ever making anything approaching $500,000 again his career, because he really didn’t perform in the Pacquiao fight, and to be honest, he’s lost his last two bouts.
Why would he get selected by anyone based on those fights? Unless they’re looking for someone that they want to beat, and who has a name because of the Pacquiao fight, I can’t Clottey getting selected by anyone. And the longer Clottey stays out of boxing, the more boxing fans will forget about him and the chances of him making big money will go down even further. It happens all the time with fighters.
They get a good payday and then take off a lot of time and then expect to get a huge money fight when they do finally decide to fight again. In some cases like with Floyd Mayweather Jr., it works but for most fighters it doesn’t happen like that. They lose value when they stop fighting on a consistent basis.
Arum had this to say about Clottey: “Clottey is looking for a fight, but he doesn’t want to fight for less than half a million. Maybe you [referring to Dan Rafael] could talk him into fighting for $400,000. He’s fat and happy right now because he got a great upside [from the PPV bout with Pacquiao]. Every month, we send him more money.”
I think it’s fair to say that Pacquiao won’t be fighting Clottey ever again, and I don’t see Mayweather fighting him either. Cotto already beat him, as did Antonio Margarito. Unless Arum decides to match him up against Pacquiao again anyway, I don’t know who he can fight for huge money.
Would Arum put Clottey in with Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.? I kind of doubt it. He’s too much of a risk for Chavez, and it would destroy Chavez’s value if Clottey beat him up.
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