Purses: Golovkin $2M, Lemieux $1.5M, Gonzalez $250K, Viloria $100K

By Boxing News - 10/16/2015 - Comments

1-GolovkinLemieuxWeighIn_Hoganphotos5By Tim Fletcher: IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (33-0, 30 KOs) will be getting the lion’s share of the money this Saturday night for his fight against IBF middleweight champion David Lemieux (34-2, 31 KOs).

Golovkin’s purse for this Saturday will be a career high of $2 million. Lemieux, 26, isn’t that far behind in picking up $1.5 million. It’s unclear if the Canadian money he gets is included in his purse. If not, then Lemieux will likely wind up with more money than Golovkin for their fight on HBO pay-per-view at Madison Square Garden.

Golovkin and Lemieux should be able to get even more than their guaranteed money if the fight brings in a lot of pay-per-view buys on HBO. But I’ll be surprised if the fight brings in more than 200,000 PPV buys. HBO has would probably be happy if the fight brings in that many buys because this is the first time Golovkin and Lemieux have ever fought on PPV before.

Golovkin could see his purses go upwards considerably in the future if he defeats Lemieux in an impressive fashion. If the winner of the Saul “Canelo” Alvarez vs. Miguel Cotto fight agrees to face him in early 2016, Golovkin could wind up with a considerable payday. Obviously, he would need to take the smaller cut of the financial pie against the likes of Cotto or Canelo.

Those guys are popular, and they’ll likely be looking to get the lion’s share of the money. But I wouldn’t be surprised if Golovkin winds up getting between $5 million to $10 million for a fight against Cotto or Canelo. Of course, they would get a much bigger share of the money against Golovkin.

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We’re probably talking about a cut of somewhere along the lines of 80-20 to 70-30. Golovkin would have to be humble to get the fight in the first place, and he’d have to be willing to take the smaller money. The only way that changes is if Golovkin’s fight against Lemieux brings in over 500,000 PPV buys or more. With that many PPV buys, Golovkin will have proved that he’s on the same level as Cotto and Canelo when it comes to PPV buys.

What would be really interesting is if the Golovkin-Lemieux fight brings in more PPV buys than the Cotto-Canelo fight. If we see that happen then it’s going to be hard to justify that the winner of the Cotto-Canelo fight deserves a much bigger split of the money.

WBC flyweight champion Roman Gonzalez (43-0, 37 KOs) will be getting $250,000 for his title defense against Brian Viloria (36-4, 22 KOs) in the co-feature bout. That’s decent money, but not the kind that you would expect for a fighter who is seen as boxing’s No.1 pound-for-pound fighter.

Gonzalez’s future purses should increase if he wipes out Viloria and looks good doing so. Viloria will be getting $100,000 for the fight, which isn’t that great either. The flyweight division is kind of an obscure one for most boxing fans in the U.S.

There are not a lot of those fights that get televised on HBO and Showtime. If Gonzalez can keep fighting on the same cards as Golovkin in the future, then his popularity will continue to skyrocket because those cards are seen by a lot of boxing fans. Those fans in turn really like what they see of Gonzalez.



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