- Joined
- May 12, 2016
- Messages
- 13,713
- Reaction score
- 10,528
I think it's a reasonable purse offering for several reasons and many others seem to think so (if you look at his social media) especially given the times. Even then, it's not like it's all financial reward here because it's a huge opportunity for his legacy. This would be a career high payday for him and 2.5x as much as he's ever made. Given how bad the economic conditions currently are due to the pandemic and the fact that Lopez isn't even an established name yet, he's a single-belt titleholder at present, I think enough reward is clearly there both financially and legacy-wise for him to sign. His last purse was only $500k to fight Commey as the B-side without a title.If he's asking for the same money as Loma, then he's undoubtedly pricing himself out (I'm very skeptical that he is). 1.2 for a guy of Lopez's standing against someone who some claim to be p4p #1 and a half decent draw would definitely be a low amount if we weren't in the middle of covid, but given the fact that there will be no gate or site fee, it might not be unreasonable (hard to know without more information and I'm definitely not just taking Arum's word for it).
On the other hand, Lopez's manager might have a point about ESPN not coughing nearly enough. This is clearly the most interesting fight for Loma so far on ESPN and Loma draws decent ratings for them. Lopez is only 23, so him taking another fight and perhaps waiting until crowds are allowed to return or a PPV might be the smart decision for his camp. Time is on his side, after all.
Additionally there's a tremendous non-financial reward here that would be very beneficial to his legacy if he could manage to beat Lomachenko. Even if he loses a decision but makes a good account of himself his stock will rise. If he loses then he was already expected to lose. He's young & talented enough to rebound provided that he doesn't quit in there (assuming he handles his first loss well in general). Since this is a unification fight there would be a rematch clause in place, and it's likely a two-way clause (since both are titleholders), so he'd get another crack at Lomachenko if he lost. Maybe even immediately. If he wins then he'd receive full credit for it as Lomachenko is still within his physical prime years at 32. Lopez has been the one calling for this all along for the last couple years, hyping it to the max, and telling anybody that would listen that he'll spark Lomachenko. There's genuine bad blood and history behind this fight so he has all the personal motivation in the world to take it just on those grounds.
He also isn't being asked to fight at a catchweight, or being hit with a sneaky rehydration clause to cap his weight and weaken him on fight night, or any other handicapping stipulations. The Vegas location would be in his favor as he's the native home fighter of the two. If he beat Lomachenko then he would immediately enter the P4P rankings across the board, he would be a three-belt unified titleholder, he'd be lineal champion (at this time this is a clear #1 vs #2 match-up for the vacant title), and he would become a legit world boxing star to pave the way toward real PPV level exposure and the big paydays that come with it. His value overnight would shoot through the roof.
There won't be a live gate, site fee, or any CCTV revenue streams. It could be a regular ESPN fight or an ESPN PPV but that could go either way. Top Rank never actually committed in that regard beforehand but they should've. What are you having to take Arum's word on? The insider that initially reported on these negotiations (Coppinger) stated that Lopez was "far off" from what Top Rank offered. He also stated that Lomachenko, despite being the clear A-side in this, had already made a concession in taking a pay cut to try and make this fight happen. He's already signed. The only one that's actually taking a pay cut here is Lomachenko, it's not Lopez. For Lopez it's still the most money he's ever made to date. When you look at the full picture this all sounds like a win-win for Lopez to me.