Eddie Hearn cannot believe that he was able to pay Juan Francisco Estrada less for his fight against Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez than he did Avni Yildirim to take on Saul “Canelo” Alvarez.
Yildirim was comfortably beaten by the unified super-middleweight champion a couple of weeks ago, with the Mexican a far better fighter and dominant throughout. However, Estrada-Chocolatito 2 was a potential classic fight with both fighters giving everything over 12 rounds as the Mexican 115-pounder won the WBA and WBC title clash.
Turkish fighter Yildirim was said to have earned $2.5 million for his part in a fight that went just three rounds.
Speaking after Estrada’s victory, Hearn said: “Sometimes I pay a fighter, I’ll give you an example – Yildirim.
“So, I pay Yildirim. Yildirim got more than Juan Estrada. Right? And it makes me feel a little bit sick. Right? But then I watched [the Estrada-Gonzalez rematch], and I think those guys should get more.
“But it’s not a charity. It’s a business. So, it depends how many people want to watch the fight. More people wanna see the third fight. So, you know, listen, [Estrada] has [Srisaket] Sor Rungvisai, he has [Kazuto] Ioka, he has [Jerwin] Ancajas, he has Roman Gonzalez. He has many options.”
Sor Rungvisai stands in the way of a super-flyweight trilogy fight, as he is Estrada’s WBC mandatory challenger. It remains to be seen if that match can be negotiated away to clear the path for a third bout.
Hearn laid out what he sees as the fundamentals behind the money earned by each boxer.
“I can’t speak on behalf of Juan and Latin Sports, but I believe that he was very happy with his purse tonight,” he said. “But, you know, fighters always want more money. We have this conversation a lot at the moment. There’s a lot of women fighters who also campaign. Really, the value of the product represents the value of the purse. OK? So, the money that a fight generates reflects on the purse that a fighter is paid. It doesn’t matter about their weight class. It doesn’t matter about their sex. It doesn’t matter about their race.
“It matters about subscriptions, ticket sales, the commercial interest from broadcasters. So, the smaller weight classes – now, I don’t know what Juan Estrada received for the first fight [with Gonzalez]. But I’d like to think he made 10 times more tonight for the second fight. And I’m sure his manager will be asking for more for the third fight.”