BOXING
How much money are Teofimo Lopez and George Kambosos making? How much does the winner get?
After an agonizing 13 month wait for the IBF lightweight title bout, there has been a river of money changing hands. But how much do the fighters get?
When the unified lightweight champion Teofimo Lopez takes the ring at the Hulu Theater in New York tonight, it will be the end of a very long 13-month hiatus since his spectacular handling of Vasily Lomachenko in October of 2020. Part of the delay in his mandatory bout against George Kambosos was covid-induced, but the majority of it was a spell of bad luck, bad timing, and bad promotion by Ryan Kavanaugh and Triller. For various reasons, the fight date and location was moved eight times, ultimately resulting in the IBF ruling that Triller was in breach of contract and awarding the promotion rights to Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom.
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Triller forfeited its $1.2 million deposit with the IBF, which was split between the fighters along the original contract’s 75-25 lines, giving Lopez $937,500 and Kambosos $312,500. The Matchroom bid was originally $3.56 million. They haven’t disclosed the final purse on offer, but if it is along the same lines, this would see Lopez receiving $2.27 million and Kambosos $1.22 million. So far, no additional bonus or payments have been announced from Matchroom.
This has been a long and winding road to bring Lopez’s first title defense to fruition has resulted in his restructuring his contract with Top Rank to significantly raise the minimum purse from its previous $1.25 million plus offer the opportunity for pay-per-view bouts on ESPN+. Should he make it past the Australian, Lopez could have a very bright 2022 ahead of him.
He has already begun calling out his preferred opponents, Josh Taylor, Gervonta Davis, and Devin Haney but there is one man that he has no appetite for and that is the man who he defeated to get to where he is, Vasily Lomachenko. Taylor accused Lopez of being afraid to offer Loma the rematch and that kicked off a war of words from the Lopez camp. When questioned over his reluctance to face Lomachenko again, Lopez replied, “I beat the man that everybody said was the man. There's no point in fighting Lomachenko.”
When questioned on the wisdom of looking past the next fight, Lopez insists that he isn’t taking victory over Kambosos for granted. "I don't overlook these fighters I face, I look through them. I don't look around them, I look through them. And I punch right through them."
Lopez vs Kambosos will face off at Madison Square Garden's Hulu Theatre in New York City on Saturday, November 27. The event is to be streamed exclusively by DAZN.