Comments Thread For: Lomachenko: Walters Isn't Scared; Just Wants A Lot More Money

[Motorcity Cobra]

Another thing that shows Bob's bias towards Lomachenko is Arum's refusal to accept Showtime offer to pay more money for the fight if he moved the date. Puerto Rican prospect on the undercard. Puerto Rican champion on the main event. Puerto Rican weekend in New York. And the fight is in the small hall. Not to mention they had to pay off Miguel Berchelt because Martinez was supposed to fight him when he recovered from his injury.

[djt117]

Another thing that shows Bob's bias towards Lomachenko is Arum's refusal to accept Showtime offer to pay more money for the fight if he moved the date. Puerto Rican prospect on the undercard. Puerto Rican champion on the main event. Puerto Rican weekend in New York. And the fight is in the small hall. Not to mention they had to pay off Miguel Berchelt because Martinez was supposed to fight him when he recovered from his injury.

Walters ABSOLUTELY deserves equal money but the problem is that with the 2 Gold Medals, Loma was an expensive guy to sign and Arum probably has him on a high per fight guarantee that kicked in upon winning a title.

I don't think it's that Arum intends to disrespect Walters or that he's biased towards one fighter. I think it's just that, contractually, he can't pay Loma less. If he pays Walters more, he loses money on the fight.

What Bob can't come out and say is that Lomachenko (while talented) has no business getting paid $850K in terms of his marketability.

Arum overpaid for Lomachenko because he signed him at the peak of the Haymon signing blitz when money was flying around like it was going out of style.

But that's his problem that he "bought when the market was sky high". He should take a few bucks out of his miserly pocket and take a bit of a loss to make the fight because if promoted well, it could make the winner a star (which will make Arum money long term anyhow).

Al Haymon annoys me for a lot of reasons but I'll give credit where it's due: Al has the attitude, "I'll take a loss today to make a bigger profit tomorrow". I don't think Arum ever thinks that way—it's always "small ball".

[TheCell8]

For some perspective. Lomanchenko made $750,000 to fight Koasicha on the Tim Bradley-Brandon Rios undercard. They offered Walters $550,000 to fight Lomachenko in a main event. The $550,000 would have been his highest purse. Walters has the better resume and has headlined his own shows and is a bigger draw than Lomachenko. Lomachenko gets $200,000 more to fight a bum on an undercard, that didn't sell well, than what would've been Walters highest payday. Lomachenko isn't worried because he's getting great paydays.

That $750K was before the recent HBO paycut. So yea, you're not going to be able to expect those types of numbers again unless one fighter gets significantly more than the other. If Loma got 750K against Koasicha, obviously he was going to demand more to fight Walters at a higher weight. So Arum compromised and gave him 850K and then also gave Walters his highest pay day.

Also, the other points you made.

I would argue Lomachenko has a similar resume to Walters. GRJ is way better than Nonito Donaire and Darchinyan. Are we going to act like GRJ wouldn't knock them out either?

As far as being a bigger draw:

Walters vs. Donaire did 1.1M viewers but that was mainly off Donaire's name.
His following fight with Miguel Mariaga did 588 K and his next fight with Jason Sosa did 373K. So his numbers have been plummeting.

Lomachenko vs. Salido did 1.017M, 578K vs. GRJ, 585K with Koasicha. So they're about the same in the draw department.

[sicko]

AS HE SHOULD for what is considered a big fight!

[richardt]

Why does he deserve more money then walter in the first place?? He doesnt have a 0 anymore, and no big name win unlike nicholas

You don't understand boxing obviously. Being unbeaten has nothing to do with it. And Lom was willing to give Walters some of his purse. On top of that, Walters gave up his main bargaining chip, his title. And Lom has been a champion for two years and if Lom wins tonight, he is still something Walters is not, a champion. That's a position of power. On top of that, Lom is the one with arguably the best AM record of all time and two gold medals. Obviously you are not detail oriented when it comes to facts.

[lazaron72]

Fight Gamboa then . Im sure Gamboa will fight you for the money Walters was offered .
Gamboa has 1 olimpic gold medal - you got 2 . Gamboa beat salido ; you couldn't .
Loma is good , very good . I think that rigondeaux Loma at 124 . Or Gamboa Loma at 130 , are very , very good ones .

Rigonndeaux would beat him at 124 ; Gamboa?? Up to grab ... Gamboa can punch .

Hit and not be hit ; can not hit what you don't see .

[richardt]

Fight Gamboa then . Im sure Gamboa will fight you for the money Walters was offered .
Gamboa has 1 olimpic gold medal - you got 2 . Gamboa beat salido ; you couldn't .
Loma is good , very good . I think that rigondeaux Loma at 124 . Or Gamboa Loma at 130 , are very , very good ones .

Rigonndeaux would beat him at 124 ; Gamboa?? Up to grab ... Gamboa can punch .

Hit and not be hit ; can not hit what you don't see .

Gamboa is at 135 so not till Lom moves up if he moves up. Gamboa is a hundred years old now and will be older later.

[TheCell8]

Exactly spot on. This is why so many have left Arum in the past, he is way too biased with his fighters.

Every promoter is biased towards certain fighters in their stable. You have a handful of stars and the rest are just fighters with potential.

Objectivly speaking if these two fighters were with a different promoter who valued them equally and judged them based on marketability and history there is no question that Walters would get a much better split probably around 70-30, or 60-40 at best.

What marketability is that? They produce the same numbers on HBO pretty much. The difference is that Loma is a two time Olympic Gold Medalist, which is easier to sell and he's chasing history. Plus Loma has a better manager who was able to negotiate a contract with Arum that gets him paid.

HBO is cheap as well, showtime or haymon would put up about 2 Mill for this fight rather than just over a mill, so Walters is correct in waiting for the right pay, because at that rate he should receive about 1.2 mill and Lomo 800K.

HBO is responsible. Haymon would have lost money putting up $2M for this fight. Well I also hope Walters doesn't wait too long. Because if Lomachenko becomes champion he's probably not going to get that same offer he had before.

Lomo has already been over paid for few fights and a boring style, while Riggo is similar and got penuts, once again bias of bob. Now Walters is a KO artist entertaining in and outside of the ring and they still don't want to pay him. He even dismantled a huge name in Doniare and bigger names than Lomo has even attempted to fight. Boxing politics messes up the sport most of the time.

The fans decide on that. Walters being a KO artist doesn't change the fact that his numbers on HBO have been plummeting from 1.1M against Donaire to 330K vs. Jason Sosa. He clearly hasn't been able to resonate with the fans. Dismantling a 'huge name' in Donaire clearly hasn't done much for his career as the numbers indicate.

[Corelone]

You don't understand boxing obviously. Being unbeaten has nothing to do with it. And Lom was willing to give Walters some of his purse. On top of that, Walters gave up his main bargaining chip, his title. And Lom has been a champion for two years and if Lom wins tonight, he is still something Walters is not, a champion. That's a position of power. On top of that, Lom is the one with arguably the best AM record of all time and two gold medals. Obviously you are not detail oriented when it comes to facts.

I have to agree, Walters not only gave up the title, he gave it up on the scales and looked ordinary in the ring. He hasn't done anything since he got some disease.

[Motorcity Cobra]

That $750K was before the recent HBO paycut. So yea, you're not going to be able to expect those types of numbers again unless one fighter gets significantly more than the other. If Loma got 750K against Koasicha, obviously he was going to demand more to fight Walters at a higher weight. So Arum compromised and gave him 850K and then also gave Walters his highest pay day.

Also, the other points you made.

I would argue Lomachenko has a similar resume to Walters. GRJ is way better than Nonito Donaire and Darchinyan. Are we going to act like GRJ wouldn't knock them out either?

As far as being a bigger draw:

Walters vs. Donaire did 1.1M viewers but that was mainly off Donaire's name.
His following fight with Miguel Mariaga did 588 K and his next fight with Jason Sosa did 373K. So his numbers have been plummeting.

Lomachenko vs. Salido did 1.017M, 578K vs. GRJ, 585K with Koasicha. So they're about the same in the draw department.

Those TV ratings don't pay the bills, HBO doesn't sell advertising. I'm talking selling seats. Walters has been able to sell three shows. We don't even know if Lomachenko can sell a show himself. The show this weekend is two Puerto Ricans on Puerto Rican weekend in New York. And if they are the same draw then the money should've been at least close to the same. That Rios-Bradley show, which he was on the undercard, sold horribly. He's not bringing in any extra ticket sales. That $850k to $550k was an insult. Money was also the reason the Rigo fight couldn't get made. I wonder if that Salido fight can get made because Salido just had the fight of the year and sold out stub hub. All I'm saying is he's gonna have to sacrifice some of his purse to get the fights made that we want to see.