expe wrote:To answer the original question, I think this debate's been had before on here and I come to the same answer now as I did then, which was Calzaghe.
Froch probably made the biggest individual purse, depending on whether Calzaghe got anything extra from the PPV for the Jones fight, which I don't think he did, which based on the exchange rate at the time and the reported figures of £8m for Froch and $10m for Calzaghe would put him about £1.5m ahead on that front.
But on overall earnings, Calzaghe had 24 world title fights, they might not have all been big fights but they still pay well. Just on the rough figures I can find online:
Jones - $10m/£6.5m
Hopkins - £4.1m (£1.9m was disputed but judging by the way he seems friendly enough with Warren I would guess they came to some sort of agreement over that.
Mkrtchyan, Salem, Ashira and Lacy - £600k each = £2.4m
Veit II - $1.3m/£700k
Those alone come to not far off £14m and there's another 17 world title fights to add to that, including Kessler and there were all sorts of numbers being quoted for Kessler to come over, including $5m so it's reasonable to assume he got a couple of million for that. Warren was quoted in an interview a few years as saying that Calzaghe made £18m with him, Jones on top of that plus a bit from his early days with Mickey Duff and realistically it's likely that his career earnings were in the region of £25m.
Did Froch make £25m from boxing? Highly unlikely for me, Groves II was £8m, but that would mean his other 34 fights would have to average out at somewhere in the region of £500k each. His first 23 fights weren't for world titles and there were no really big fights in there, even at an incredibly optimistic, and to be honest downright ridiculous, average of £50k each, he would have had to average close to £1.5m a fight for the run from Pascal to Groves I. He got $600k plus UK TV for Ward, which was about £400k plus his cut of whatever Sky were willing to pay for a fight in the early hours of the morning, and that was his biggest fight up to that point.
In conclusion, with very little doubt, if any, Calzaghe earned more money in his career.
Yes, and Jones homecoming fight at the Millenium would have made a fortune as well, given the opponent wasn't a big name. A sell out and a PPV, would have made huge money.
The Manfredo fight? I'm almost certain that was on ITV, not PPV.
It was. They also showed a phone call between Joe and Carl in the build up.