I was just wondering who do you think is the richest boxer in the world from fight purses?
I know oscar is proberly the richest from his promotion company but who has the most money from fighting alone.
Don't know about current, but Lewis earned £150m+ during his career from ring earnings alone
He was getting paid way too much in relation to his talent.
Tyson, Lewis and Holyfield have all got to be up there.
Tyson has probably earned the most but blown most of it on divorces, litigations and had much of it stolen by King.
Holyfield has got X number of illegitimate children to pay for and free in alimony.
Lewis has earned the least but probably invested the best. IIRC, Lewis and Steward had a contract saying that regardless of how much Lewis earned, Steward's cut was going to be no more than $300,000. Lewis also has a record company, homes in Jamaica, Miami, London and in Europe. He's got various other business outlets too so he's sitting pretty. According to estimates, he's worth over $400,000,000 last time I checked.
Don't also forget that a fight purse is never straight foward. There are taxes to pay (40%), trainer (10%), promoter (10-20%), cuts men (2%) and other corner people (1% each?).
All those things add up and people often overlook them so its very easy to criticise people for blowing money whilst neglecting to look at the above mentioned. For example, Tyson had earned an estimated $300,000,000.
Let's break it down.
40% in taxes ($120,000,000) - you can't escape the taxes, the promoter has to declare this to the IRS.
10% to trainers - $30,000,000
Don King allegedly taking $100,000,000
Two divorces - $6,000,000 to Monica Turner, $20,000,000 to Robin Givens
2% to cutsmen - $6,000,000
1% to other cornermen - $3,000,000 (sounds ridiculously high doesn't it?)
roughly speaking based on these estimates, that comes to $285,000,000
That's before Tyson starts spending (which he did ALOT of).