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Amir Khan is understood to be earning a career-best £9m for his showdown with Saul Canelo Alvarez here on Saturday night, the biggest purse of any British boxer for five years and more than the combined earning of the 29-year-old's last five contests.
It will have been part of the equation for Team Khan signing for the riskiest fight of the Boltonian's career as the newly-built 20,000 seater T-Mobile Arena just off The Strip is christened for the first time by a major boxing event.
Alvarez will gross upwards of US $35 million depending on pay per view buys, on the Cinco De Mayo Mexican holiday weekend which has typically been the date for the biggest fights of the year in Sin City.
Khan's purse will be the most any British fighter has earned since David Haye netted £15m for his heavyweight world title unification with Wladimir Klitschko in Hamburg in 2010. Fellow Briton Tyson Fury earned around £2.4m for dethroning Klitschko as heavyweight champion of the world last year, while Carl Froch made £8m for his eighth round knockout of George Groves in front of an 80,000 crowd at Wembley Stadium in May 2014.
In February, Scott Quigg and Carl Frampton shared a £4m pot for their super bantamweight world title unification clash at the Manchester Arena.
Khan, a serious underdog for a contest for which he has had to build his physical stature from 147lbs at welterweight to a catchweight of 155lbs, is adamant nonetheless that this contest with 'Canelo' - the red-haired Mexican star aged 25 who has already had 48 fights, with only one defeat to Floyd Mayweather Jr on points - is "about making history not making money".
"I've never gone into a fight just to make money," said Khan.
"I'm going to have another four or five fights and still make a lot of money, but I'm really doing this for legacy, I'm doing this because I really believe I can make history."
That said, it must be a sweetener should this huge challenge fall flat. Khan was named 10th on the Sunday Times Rich List for British athletes under 30 with a personal fortune of £18m recently.
Khan is benefitting from the drawing power of Alvarez, who is fast-becoming one of boxing's biggest pay-per-view draws.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/boxing/20...9m-from-fight/
It will have been part of the equation for Team Khan signing for the riskiest fight of the Boltonian's career as the newly-built 20,000 seater T-Mobile Arena just off The Strip is christened for the first time by a major boxing event.
Alvarez will gross upwards of US $35 million depending on pay per view buys, on the Cinco De Mayo Mexican holiday weekend which has typically been the date for the biggest fights of the year in Sin City.
Khan's purse will be the most any British fighter has earned since David Haye netted £15m for his heavyweight world title unification with Wladimir Klitschko in Hamburg in 2010. Fellow Briton Tyson Fury earned around £2.4m for dethroning Klitschko as heavyweight champion of the world last year, while Carl Froch made £8m for his eighth round knockout of George Groves in front of an 80,000 crowd at Wembley Stadium in May 2014.
In February, Scott Quigg and Carl Frampton shared a £4m pot for their super bantamweight world title unification clash at the Manchester Arena.
Khan, a serious underdog for a contest for which he has had to build his physical stature from 147lbs at welterweight to a catchweight of 155lbs, is adamant nonetheless that this contest with 'Canelo' - the red-haired Mexican star aged 25 who has already had 48 fights, with only one defeat to Floyd Mayweather Jr on points - is "about making history not making money".
"I've never gone into a fight just to make money," said Khan.
"I'm going to have another four or five fights and still make a lot of money, but I'm really doing this for legacy, I'm doing this because I really believe I can make history."
That said, it must be a sweetener should this huge challenge fall flat. Khan was named 10th on the Sunday Times Rich List for British athletes under 30 with a personal fortune of £18m recently.
Khan is benefitting from the drawing power of Alvarez, who is fast-becoming one of boxing's biggest pay-per-view draws.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/boxing/20...9m-from-fight/
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