Largest purse won by an Irish fighter?

jjm

Guys, was discussing this with a couple of mates, I had a root around the web but found nothing. Anyone know the single largest purse won by an Irish fighter?

Dunne, Duddy, Lee, Macklin and Jamie Moore, would all have good pay-days recently. Back in the day Steve Collins and Barry McGuigan would have made nice cash for their fights but it would probably be small by todays standards.

Anyone got input?

PCPhoto

too hard to define .... if you include endorsements ... strictly purse I would guess Dunne after the cordoba fight...or the thai guy penwhatshisname !!

wireless101

McBride after beating Tyson?

joepenguin

PCPhoto wrote: »

too hard to define .... if you include endorsements ... strictly purse I would guess Dunne after the cordoba fight...or the thai guy penwhatshisname !!

I think Dunne got very little purse wise from the poonswat fight as peters won the purse bids with a minimum bid. Can anyone shed light on that? Id imagine Dunne took away a whole lot more than his split of that for the fight.
As for highest ever purse for an Irish fighter, hard one to call. I can't even recall that many figures.

Big Ears

No idea what Steve Collins got for his rematch with Eubank or his fights with Benn but I'm guessing one of this 3 will be the highest and the other two could very well be the next highest.

McBride only got something like $150,000 for fighting Tyson, and I imagine he got even less for his fight with Andrew Golota, which is bound to be his next highest.

walshb

I'd think that Barry got a few big purses after he won the title, particularly his
U.S fight vs. Cruz. Cruz got 70k for the bout; I'd say Barry got at least double that, and maybe as much as four times this.

Before the Cruz bout, Eastwood allegedly wanted Barry not to face Cruz, but to fight
Wilfredo Gomez at super feather, and was guaranteeing him 750k. At that time that
was pretty big bucks at the lower weights

megadodge

walshb wrote: »

I'd think that Barry got a few big purses after he won the title, particularly his
U.S fight vs. Cruz. Cruz got 70k for the bout; I'd say Barry got at least double that, and maybe as much as four times this.

Before the Cruz bout, Eastwood allegedly wanted Barry not to face Cruz, but to fight
Wilfredo Gomez at super feather, and was guaranteeing him 750k. At that time that
was pretty big bucks at the lower weights

There are an awful lot of allegations surrounding that whole trip/fight, so I don't want to open a can of worms over who you believe or not, but Cruz was definitely a very late substitute for an Argentinian (Sosa, I think) Barry was meant to fight and who he was also meant to fight the bout before (in the RDS) where he also pulled out only for Cabrera to step in at late notice.

As far as I remember Barry's purse was aprox. IR£250,000 for his title win over Pedroza. I'm not 100% on that, but whatever it was it was big bucks for 1985.

willmc83

mcbride got somewere in the region of $200,000 to $250,000 to fight tyson. my gut instinct but i have nothing to confirm it is that it is collins, i remember there was talk of him being offered €3,000,000 to fight roy jones back around 1996/ 97. i think i recall a figure of £1,000,000 being mentioned for one of the eubank fights but that could include spin off money.

can't really see any other contenders since. dunne never really had a high profile outside ireland and i doubt the rte money was anything near what sky or hbo offer.

the only other possibility i could think of is duddy. he has a huge following in the states and has sold out madison square garden countless times. that alfadrome place in texas holds thousands and his fight there with chavez was pay per view.

he operated 'freelance' for his first fifteen fights or so and then signed a deal with the mcloughlin brothers and is currently with bob arum so i'm guessing he's failry shrewd when it comes to the money.

walshb

megadodge wrote: »

There are an awful lot of allegations surrounding that whole trip/fight, so I don't want to open a can of worms over who you believe or not, but Cruz was definitely a very late substitute for an Argentinian (Sosa, I think) Barry was meant to fight and who he was also meant to fight the bout before (in the RDS) where he also pulled out only for Cabrera to step in at late notice.

As far as I remember Barry's purse was aprox. IR£250,000 for his title win over Pedroza. I'm not 100% on that, but whatever it was it was big bucks for 1985.

Yes, Fernando Sosa was the original opponent. Detached retina forced him out.

Cruz' highest purse before that bout was 5000 dollars. It really was a payday for him.

Eastwood "claims" that Barry wanted no part of the Gomez bout. Do I believe this? Don't know, but it seems a little strange that Barry would turn down 750 k to meet a well past it Gomez at 130 lbs with no title on the line. Barry would have eaten Gomez alive, who was reportedly well overweight around this time. MSG or Dublin were the proposed venues

I guess overall Barry was was a real star, money earner and of the lot, I would guess
that he probably made the single largest purse.

megadodge

walshb wrote: »

Yes, Fernando Sosa was the original opponent. Detached retina forced him out.

Cruz' highest purse before that bout was 5000 dollars. It really was a payday for him.

Eastwood "claims" that Barry wanted no part of the Gomez bout. Do I believe this? Don't know, but it seems a little strange that Barry would turn down 750 k to meet a well past it Gomez at 130 lbs with no title on the line. Barry would have eaten Gomez alive, who was reportedly well overweight around this time. MSG or Dublin were the proposed venues

I guess overall Barry was was a real star, money earner and of the lot, I would guess
that he probably made the single largest purse.

Find that emboldened bit very hard to believe.

As you said Gomez was well past it and was very lucky to even win the super-feather title, but he still had a big name and Barry would have got a very big purse for a relatively handy fight.

walshb

Barney "claims" that he still has the contracts for the Gomez-McGuigan bout.

cppromotions

Steve Collins got 1 million for the rematch with Eubank and 1.1 Million sterling for the first Benn fight