Report: Mayweather to earn record $41.5 million for fight
Boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. will earn a record guaranteed purse of $41.5 million for his Sept. 14 fight against Saul "Canelo" Alvarez, according to a report Wednesday by ESPN.com that cited disclosures by Mayweather adviser Leonard Ellerbe and Golden Boy Productions promoter Richard Schaefer.
Cited as the world's highest-paid athlete in several surveys, according to ESPN.com, Mayweather will fight Alvarez in a junior middleweight unification bout at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
"Floyd is the biggest star in the sport and the best in the sport, and when you're the biggest star and you are the best, you get paid the most money," Ellerbe told ESPN.com. "So this comes along with the territory."
Mayweather's purse will be $9 million more than the previous record of $32 million, which he earned for his May 2012 fight with Miguel Cotto, as well as this May's bout with Roberto Guerrero.
For both May's fight and the upcoming bout, Mayweather will have earned a guaranteed $73.5 million.
"It's a wonderful thing," Ellerbe said. "Floyd has put boxing on his back and crossed over. He took a niche sport and went out there and marketed a persona ('Money' Mayweather) in the mainstream world and became the highest-paid athlete in sports."
Mayweather is 44-0 with 26 knockouts. Alvarez, from Mexico, is 42-0-1 with 30 KO's.
"This record purse shows you three things," Schaefer said. "No. 1, it shows you how big Floyd Mayweather is, which we all knew. But it shows you that he is not just breaking records, he breaking them, by far. And third, it just shows you big this fight with Canelo is. It's insane."
Alvarez, according to reports, is expected to earn about $10 million for the fight.
