Comments Thread For: 'If George Foreman-Muhammad Ali was today, each fighter would make $200m'

[tomhawq]

This writer provides no comparative figures. How do you know they would make $200M each? How about finding out how much Ali and Foreman made in their fight? You have no clue, do you? Why write a piece you have no knowledge of?

$200M based on what? Based on exaggerated figures you constantly read in fakenews sites pulled out of biased, agenda-ridden writers' asses?

[BrankoB]

I still remember that fight. My father woke me up early in the morning to watch it with him. By the way, I lived in a third world country at the time and the fight was shown on free to air TV (not that there was any other alternatives at that time where I lived).

By the way the promotion of the fight and visibility was of the charts. We only had black and white TV and only one channel on free to air but the promotion was in your face. You would have to live on Mars not to know about the fight - and I mean the general public knew about it.

[TonyRespectful]

well if boxing today was as popular as it was back then. but part of the popularity was also that it was accessible and on network TV.

I dont think you can just say there would be 400 million to spend on fighters. Mayweather didnt make 200m with pac, that fight was huge and he had the best contracts giving him the best percentage. that was also 10 years ago and PPV sales are down hard from then. people have so many options to be entertained and cost of living is high.


That fight being in zaire though with the government of zaire fronting money is a lot like the saudi prince today though. They dont care if its profitable they can lose money and call it promoting tourism. so maybe they do get 200m each but it wont turn a profit but if the prince made the fight. same way zaire probably lost money spending 10 million in the 70s when they had zero PPV revenue

They did have closed circuit though,it’s how I saw The Fight

[billeau2]

Ah, those hey days of boxing, when the sport was big and we were just kids...

Lol... I remember aping Frazier while another homeboy would ape Foreman or Ali. Everyone knew the fighters, you could watch, or listen to the fights, and the one thing you never heard about, the thing no one seemed to care about was what fighter's made. There was talk of King being a horrible person, and later you would hear the same about Arum. People also knew the announcers more, people like Cosel, but NO ONE ever gave two bits about what fighters made, as long as they were not robbed by KIng... and they were robbed by King.

[billeau2]

They did have closed circuit though,it’s how I saw The Fight

There was also an informal network, you could see the fights in bars. Bars could order the fights at a decent parlay for the establishment.

[maguirre]

I wasn't born yet, but I'm sure fans didn't give a flying tra/peze how much fighters made.

[SteveM]

$5 million adjusted for inflation today apparently = $35 million

that's not actually right though because we are lied to - inflation has been much more than 700%. In the uk you could but a decent house for £20,000 now it's £400,000 minimum for average house in average area. Back then if you had $25 million you were amongst the richest in the world - now if you have a billion you can say that - 40 times as much

[SteveM]

My mum was more into boxing than my dad - I was 13 - all three of us watched it live on terrestial tv in England

[RigosPressureCooker]

I guess, both Clay's and Foreman's father had to not nut for 50 years then.

That's one long case of blue balls, if you ask me, even if it is for 200 million.