I was wondering how much boxers get paid for a fight. I don’t mean the top boxers, I mean the run-of-the-mill boxers get.
Is there a difference between the winners and losers and how much is it?
A couple hundred bucks per round for a local fighter in a local fight, but then he has to pay his manager and trainer (and anyone else) out of his purse. So he might make as little as $50/round when expenses are deducted. Cite and cite.
Boxers don’t seem to get paid. Their handlers get paid and then keep the fighter in a nice kennel out back, well supplied with bones, booze, and b*tches.
I jest, but only a little. I’ve lost count of the big-name boxers who turn out to have been systematically milked dry by their management team.
Often little to nothing. A boxer might get paid in tickets, the promoter will provide a dozen tickets the boxer can try to sell to make some money, or at least get his family and friends to attend the fight and maybe he’ll get $20 cash the next time. Decent managers will often turn over any prize under $100 directly to the fighter, but he may already be in the hole for gym fees or other expenses. Even when they get paid the promoter may cut the infamous towel fee out of the prize money. Without a name, unless a boxer is on the top of the card they won’t get much. It’s not a sport you go into for the money. There can’t be much more than a hundred or two professional boxers making a living off the sport at any one time.
I should probably clarify.
I hear about fighters who box and have jobs, but I mean the fighters who go " pro", Whatever that means. I guess it means they only rely on boxing to support themselves. Sounds like a tough way to make a living.
Turning pro for a boxer is usually a formality. It means they’re giving up amateur status. Even if they don’t receive a nickel in pay they form an agreement with professional management and depending on the current intricacies of Olympic and local amateur regulations anything they receive of value like free meals makes them a professional. In addition they’ll begin training as a pro, preparing for longer fights and to actually hit and hurt their opponents instead of just touching them.
If a top ranked amateur has a name they may receive some money up front, something like a signing bonus to cement the deal with a manager, trainer, or promoter. And sometimes they even receive the money. For a US Olympic star it may be the real start to a earning a living in the sport, but still for most boxers it’s still amounts to little. Boxing is an international sport and pro boxing is a popular pursuit in poor economic conditions everywhere. It’s a little better status for a young man to be unable to support himself as a professional boxer than just an ordinary poor guy on the streets.
I would guess that only the better pro fighters give up their jobs. I know that Ricky Burns(a world champion from the UK) was still working a normal 9 to 5 job soon before he fought for the world title. I cannot give you a precise number as I suspect every boxer is different. A flashy knock em-sockem average heavyweight will probably get more money per fight than an average plodding, feather fisted bantamweight.
The following are only guesstimates so take them with a pinch of salt - most full time pros will be in the mid to upper end of blue collar level income. Better boxers will get a solid middle class income; very good boxers will receive an upper middle class income; Floyd Mayweather gets A-list Hollywood levels of wealth per fight.
Most full time pro boxers are impoverished. Supported by family or friends, owning little more than the clothes on their backs. That assumes they don’t have a second job which would support them.
Was this question in honor of Boxing Day?
You are probably correct, but I would say many full-time pro boxers are quite young and relatively responsibility free. Their income is fairly poor, as are their outgoings. I doubt many full-time impoverished boxers in first world countries are attempting to rear a family on their boxing income alone.