By Sean Jones: In a big shocker, Triller won today’s purse bid with a massive $6.02 million bid for IBF/WBA/WBC/WBO lightweight champion Teofimo Lopez’s title defense against his IBF mandatory George Kambosos Jr. Teofimo will wind up with roughly $4 million from the fight.
That’s considerably more than what he would have gotten if he’d agreed to the contract minimum that he would get from his promoters at Top Rank.
Teofimo’s promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank reportedly put in a bid of $2.3 million, which was less than one-third of the winning bid. Arum said recently the Teofimo vs. Kambosos fight isn’t a huge match-up for him to want to pay massive money for it.
Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn, who works with DAZN, came in second in today’s purse bid with a $3.51 million bid.
Thursday’s purse bid results for Teofimo Lopez vs. George Kambosos Jr fight:
- Triller: $6.02m
- Matchroom/DAZN: $3.51m
- Top Rank/ESPN: $2.32m
“The date and venue will be announced in the coming weeks,” said the Triller through their press release today on the Teofimo vs. Kambosos Jr fight.
There’s no word yet from Triller about the date, location, and how much it will cost for boxing fans to watch the Teofimo vs. Kambosos Jr fight. But you have to believe that given the large bid from Triller, they could potentially place it on pay-per-view in the U.S.
That’ll be interesting to see if fans want to order the Teofimo-Kambosos fight, as it’s not a huge one. Kambosos Jr isn’t well known, and he’s done very little in his career. He’s an Australian fighter who struggled to beat past their prime fighters Mickey Bey [37-years-old] and Lee Selby.
Triller previously staged the old-timer exhibition between 50+-year-old Mike Tyson vs. Roy Jones Jr. That was a PPV exhibition that brought in a lot of buys. Still, there were many unhappy boxing fans afterward in how the match looked like the two were trying not to hurt each other.
Triller also will be staging the fight between YouTuber Jake Paul and former UFC fighter Ben Askren.
Top Rank still has Teofimo under contract for 3 1/2 years. You have to ask the question of whether Teofimo will continue to have his fights go to purse bid?
Top Rank will get a cut of the revenue if Teofimo’s fights continue to be won by outside bidders, but it would be a bad look for Arum if this happens repeatedly.
Moreover, if boxing fans are expected to pay to watch Teofimo make title defenses against over-matched non-name fighters in the future, that’s not a win-win for them. The last thing boxing fans need right now is to pay to watch mismatches during the pandemic.