Deontay Wilder (40-0, 39 KOs) scored a thrilling KO over Luis Ortiz (28-1-2 NCs, 24 KOs) in Saturday’s Showtime Boxing main event. After knocking Ortiz down in the 5th round, Wilder nearly found himself KO’d in round 7, but stayed on his feet and rallied to knock the Cuban out in the 10th round, handing him by far the biggest win of his career.
The New York State Athletic Commission doesn’t disclose fighter salaries, but ESPN’s Dan Rafael did get a hold of the purse info for Wilder and Ortiz. “The Bronze Bomber” earned a career-high $2.1 million, while the challenger Ortiz got $500,000, which is surely the most he’s been paid.
In fairness to Wilder, he was due to make at least $4.5 million for a 2016 fight vs. Alexander Povetkin, but Povetkin failed a drug test and the fight was cancelled. Wilder has yet to headline a pay-per-view in his career, and the one mega-fight that figures to fatten his wallet would be against Anthony Joshua.
In the post-fight interview, the WBC heavyweight champion once again called out the WBA and IBF champion, who will be unifying his titles with WBO champ Joseph Parker (24-0, 18 KOs) on March 31st. Joshua is reportedly going to pocket $20 million for his UK pay-per-view bout vs. Parker, and would surely be the A-side in a potential showdown with Wilder. Eddie Hearn, Joshua’s promoter, has scoffed at Wilder’s idea of a 50-50 split, but Wilder recently backed down from that.
Just to tidy things up, tn the co-main event, which was the only other televised fight of the evening, Jose Uzcategui’s reported payout was $115,000 for his interim IBF super-middleweight title win over Andre Dirrell, who netted himself $150,000.