By Jim Dower: WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley (32-1-1, 12 KOs) will be getting the lion’s share of the revenue for Saturday’s fight against challenger Brandon Rios (33-2-1, 24 KOs) at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. Bradley, 32, will be getting $1.9 million compared to Rios’ $800,000.
It’s unclear if those purses will be bumped up with other money. It’s not PPV, so it doesn’t look like there will be any other revenue the fighters get.
According to Rios, his career could be over with if he loses the fight with Bradley on Saturday. Rios is a 5:1 underdog in the fight, and he says he doesn’t want to lose and see his paydays drop off to $30,000 per fight. Rios doesn’t seem interested in having to rebuild his career like other fighters do when they suffer a number of losses in short period of time.
In the co-feature, WBO featherweight champion Vasyl Lomachenko (4-1, 2 KOs) will be getting $750,000. His opponent #7 WBA Romulo Koasicha (25-4, 15 KOs) will only be getting $35,000. That’s not too good, is it? What’s surprising is that Lomachenko is getting almost as much as Rios, who is arguably better known by the casual boxing fans in the U.S.
Lomachenko, a two time Olympic gold medalist, is obviously the more accomplished fighter compared to Rios in terms of his amateur experiences. But as a pro, Lomachenko has had only 4 fights, with one of those fights being a loss to Orlando Salido in March 2014.
The only win over a quality fighter that Lomachenko has is his 12 round decision win over Gary Russell Jr. in 2014. Other than that, we’re still talking about a fighter with only one quality win. Lomachenko’s promoter Bob Arum wants to match him up against Guillermo Rigondeaux in his next fight once he beats Koasicha on Saturday. There’s no question that Lomachenko will beat Koasicha.
The only question is in what way – a knockout or a wide decision? Rigondeaux will be a good fight for Lomachenko, but there’s likely going to be a huge disparity in weight for the fight, because Lomachenko is a big featherweight, who arguably could be fighting at super featherweight or even lightweight if he wanted to.
Rigondeaux is a fighter that really should be fighting at bantamweight, because he only rehydrates four pounds after making weight at 122 for his fights at super bantamweight. So we’re really talking about is Rigondeaux being asked to fight a guy that is two to three divisions bigger than him in Lomachenko.
I can’t say it’s a good match-up for Rigondeaux in terms of the weight. He’s not going to get a rehydrate agreement with Lomachenko. Rigondeaux, 35, would be the clear B-side in the negotiations and that would make impossible for him to have much bargaining power to get what he wants, whether it be for a decent purse, rehydration agreement or a rematch clause.
Bob Arum, who promotes Lomachenko, would be able to even the score with Rigondeaux, as he defeated his star fighter Nonito Donaire two years ago. The loss for Donaire really took the air out of his career, and he still hasn’t bounced back from the loss.
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