By Edward Chaykovsky
Former two-time champion Andre Berto (30-4, 23KOs) has denied that his guarantee was only $4 million dollars for the September 12th bout with WBC/WBA welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. (49-0, 26KOs), who won a twelve round unanimous decision at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
Berto's purse was reported to the Nevada State Athletic Commission as being a $4 million guarantee. There are often times where the commission received a purse figure that was lower, and sometime significantly lower, than the actual agreed-upon purse.
"That's the thing, they keep talking about it's $4 million [that I was guaranteed]. We got more than $4 [million], so I don't know where they're getting [their information] from. But like I said my guarantee was a lot more than $4 [million]," Berto told Power 105.
Because Mayweather was paid over $30 million for his guarantee, Berto believes Showtime - which handled the pay-per-view - took a loss. He doesn't know for a fact that a loss was taken, but he believes they did.
Mayweather has a six fight deal with Showtime. Insiders speculate that Showtime may have taken losses on the fights with Robert Guerrero, Marcos Maidana and of course Berto. On the other side, the network made a fortune with Mayweather's fights against Saul Alvarez and Manny Pacquiao. Between those two events, they grabbed nearly 6.7 million pay-per-view purchases - more than enough to make that six fight deal a financial success.
"[They] probably [did take a loss]," Berto said. "I mean of course [they took a loss], because they have to pay [Mayweather] so much money. They have to guarantee him a certain amount no matter who he fights. So they took a lot of losses in his past fights, because they had to guarantee him a certain amount."
ADD COMMENT VIEW COMMENTS (44)