16.01.07 – By Scott Frake: Based on the latest boxing news, the trainer for Oscar De La Hoya, Floyd Mayweather Sr, is asking to be paid two million dollars to train De La Hoya (38-4, 30 KO’s) for the blockbuster bout with his son, which will take place on May 5th, 2007, at the MGM Grand Hotel & Casiono, in Las Vegas, Nevada. “I told him my figure and he said he’d get back with me,” Mayweather Sr. said to USA today. Apparently, Mayweather Sr. is basing his 2 million dollar figure on the fact that the bout is likely to smash box office records, bringing in substantial amounts of money from HBO PPV and at the gate, which could equal 70 million or more.
If this bout does, in fact, bring in record revenue, it could potentially pay De La Hoya, 33, more than 30 million dollars. Based on this, Mayweather Sr’s request for 2 million would appear to be fair, considering boxing trainers, at times, can make up to 10% of a boxer’s winnings. However, even with a lesser percentage, it would seem that Mayweather isn’t be unreasonable by asking for his 2 million.
“What I’m asking for is nowhere near what he’s going to make. There’s too much money for me to take chits and bits,” Mayweather Sr. further said to USA Today. In past bouts, Mayweather Sr. has been said to have been paid in the six figures. However, none of them have been of the magnitude of the Mayweather Jr./De La Hoya bout.
Besides this, the bout has an added drama due to Mayweather Sr. being the father Floyd, making this fight even more complicated than it already should be.
De La Hoya’s last fight was against Ricardo Mayorga, a fight that saw De La Hoya knock Mayorga down twice en route to stopping him in the 6th round, to take Mayorga’s WBC light middleweight title (154 lb. division). The bout, the first fight in 20 months for De La Hoya, was only the 2nd win for him in the past three years, after losing a 12-round decision to Shane Mosley in September 2003, and being stopped by Bernard Hopkins in the 9th round in September 2004. In between that, De La Hoya won a very controversial 12-round decision over Felix Sturm, in which many ring side observers felt that Sturm easily won.