Purses: Deontay Wilder $2.1 million, Luis Ortiz $500,000

Boxingnews24.com

By Stanley White

WBC heavyweight champion Deontay ‘Bronze Bomber’ Wilder (39-0, 38 KOs) will be getting a $2.1 million purse for his title defense on Saturday night against Luis ‘King Kong’ Ortiz (28-0, 24 KOs) for their fight on Showtime Boxing at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.

Ortiz will be getting considerably less at $500,000, which is still good money for a challenger. It’s not the huge money that the winner of the Wilder-Ortiz fight could get if they face IBF/WBA heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua in 2018 or 2019.

Only getting $2.1M makes it hard for Wilder to be taken seriously with his demand of a 50-50 purse split for the Joshua fight. Joshua makes considerably more for his fights in England than Wilder does for his fights. Joshua could give Wilder a take it or leave it 70-30 purse split offer. Even at 30 percent, Wilder would be receiving a career high payday for the fight with Joshua.

Wilder needs the Joshua fight more than anything for him to get the big money. Joshua routinely receives huge paydays fighting guys Carlos Takam and Eric Molina. The only reason he needs a fight with Wilder is to capture his WBC heavyweight title, so he can add that to his collection.

Joshua is about to win his 3rd heavyweight world title this month in his unification fight against WBO champion Joseph Parker. Getting a ‘W’ against Parker will put Joshua as a 3-belt title holder against a heavyweight with just 1 belt in Wilder. It’s hard for Wilder to be taken seriously by Joshua and his promoter Hearn with his purses being so much smaller.

Wilder could have gotten a bigger payday of over $3 million for a fight with Dillian Whyte. Hearn offered Wilder $3M to fight Whyte in March in London, England, but he said he wanted $7 million for the fight. Wilder lost money by not agreeing to Hearn’s offer, and he’s taking an unquestionably bigger risk in facing the 38-year-old unbeaten Ortiz instead of the lighter punching Whyte.

Wilder wants to get the Joshua fight because that’s where the big money comes in. Wilder weighed at 214 lbs. during Friday’s weigh-in, and there are a lot of boxing fans that are now predicting a win for Ortiz. He weighed in at 241, and he’ll have a 26 ½ lb. weight advantage.

Wilder might end up kicking himself for making the mistake of coming in at 214. Wilder was on damage control after the weigh-in, trying to tell the boxing media that weight doesn’t matter. The fact is weight DOES matter, especially when you’re as light as Wilder.

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