Welcome to a special edition of Payout Perspective. This time we take a look at the big heavyweight showdown between Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Fury dominates rematch
An early knockdown of Deontay Wilder by Tyson Fury set the tone for this fight as The Gypsy King’s jab and his extra weight proved to be too much. After Fury’s knockdown of Wilder, Fury used his weight advantage to lean on Wilder during clinches which drained his strength. Wilder’s ear was bleeding after the first knockdown and there was speculation that Wilder’s equilibrium was gone. It did look like that the rest of the fight after the first knockdown, Wilder did not seem all there.
While there was some controversy as to Wilder’s corner throwing in the towel in the seventh round, it was clear that it was a longshot for him to get back into the fight. Sometimes, the corner has to do the right thing for the fighter event if they disagree.
It now looks like that Wilder is exercising the rematch clause in his contract to fight Fury again. Wilder’s excuse was that his ring wardrobe caused him to tire seems very suspect.
Attendance and gate
It was the biggest gate for a heavyweight fight in Vegas fight history. The event drew 15,816 for a gate of $16,916,440. The fight surpassed the second fight between Lennox Lewis-Evander Holyfield at the Thomas and Mack Center on November 13, 1999 which drew 17,078 fans for a gate of $16,860,300.
Payouts
According to Mike Coppinger of The Athletic Fury and Wilder were guaranteed at least $28 million for the fight. The Nevada Athletic Commission reported that each would receive $5 million for the fight.
The rest of the payouts from Saturday’s event are as follows:
Tyson Fury $5 million DEF
Deontay Wilder $5 million
Charles Martin $250,000 DEF
Gerald Washington $275,000
Emanuel Navarrete-Martinez $300,000 DEF
Jeo Tupas Santismima $25,000
Sebastian Fundora $40,000 DEF
Daniel Jason Lewis $35,000
Javier Molina $35,000 DEF
Amir Imam $35,000
Gabriel Felix Flores, Jr. $15,000 DEF
Matthew Conway $20,000
Petros Ananyan $30,000 DEF
Subriel Matias $50,000
Isaac Lowe $7,500 DEF
Alberto Guevera $10,000
Vito Mielnicki, Jr. $4,000 DEF
Corey Champion $5,000
Rolando Romero $8,000 DEF
Arthur Ahmetoys $7,000
Promotion of the Fight
There was a lot of promotion for this fight which started in earnest with the ads for the Super Bowl during the game. This brought a lot of eyes for the event that was happening in a couple weeks from the NFL game in Miami.
There were a multitude of media hits which brought together Fury and Wilder. Despite the mutual respect, both pros knew the buttons to push to cause friction during the faceoffs. The last one in which each took turns pushing one another.
Wilder and Fury ready to go before today’s press conference even starts 🔥 pic.twitter.com/qweDu7ecBI
— B/R Betting (@br_betting) February 19, 2020
As a result, the NAC prevented them from doing the traditional face off after the weigh-ins.
Sponsorships
Proper No. Twelve, the Conor McGregor whiskey brand was at the center of the ring. In addition, Tecate, U.K. gaming company Betfred and the Sony Pictures Vin Diesel movie “Bloodshot” were displayed in the ring Saturday night.
Odds and ends
Viewership for the prelims was fairly strong across all platforms.
Parsed out, the prelims drew 862,000 on ESPN2 and 441,000 on FS1. While not as big as we are accustomed to for UFC Prelims, boxing prelims are filled with prospects and not a lot of known fighters.
I guess Fury licking the blood off of Wilder’s neck was to be some sort of sign of how much of tough guy he is but to me it just seemed unsanitary.
Triple H and Stephanie McMahon were in attendance and paid a visit to Fury pre-fight.
Ring entrance controversy. Wilder blamed his costume walking to the ring for his loss. On the other end, Fury didn’t event walk to the ring as he was carried like a king using Patsy Cline’s “Crazy” as his ring entrance.
Wilder vs. Fury drew over 1 million google searches on Saturday. It came second to the Nevada caucus which drew over 5 million.
Notably, longtime boxing sponsor Tecate is bowing out of boxing sponsorship.
Conclusion
According to Mike Coppinger of The Athletic, the event drew 800-850K PPV buys in North America. Combine that with the International buys and this was a very successful PPV. The dual promotion from PBC and Top Rank worked out well as each entity put aside their differences to put this event together. It’s not too often that you see a 50-50 purse split with opposing promoters. The question will be how well will a third fight do with the knowledge that Fury dominated the second fight? Could it possibly improve on this event? We shall see.