Barboza Jr vs McComb Purse: They Deserve More Money
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Vladislav Tchakarov
How much money would be enough for you to risk your life in the boxing ring? A million? Two million? Most fighters never reach these figures even as champions. Let's discuss the Barboza Jr vs McComb purse and see how much they will earn for their biggest fight yet.
Boxing Fighter Pay: What Will Barboza Jr vs McComb Be Paid?
You already know who's headlining this event – Devin Haney and Ryan Garcia – two of the world's biggest talents and most famous boxers.
Spoiler alert – they are both getting tens of millions of dollars this week. Next to their purses, everyone else on that card is going to make pennies.
Arnold Barboza Jr. and Sean McComb are the perfect examples. Their bout will play out right before the main event but neither of them is going to get more than half a mil. In fact, neither of them has ever made more than that for a fight.
Barboza is currently ranked first in the WBO super lightweight rankings and yet he barely makes $300,000-400,000 per fight. And that's on a good day if he is lucky. His past earnings are not public but we know that he made $320,000 for his fight Alex Saucedo in 2020.
He fought four times since then and the level of his opposition grew, so he must have made more than that for some of those fights. At the same time, two of his potential fights failed last year exactly due to the low purse bids.
Arnold Barboza declined them as he was disappointed with the figures. For example, he was offered a WBO junior welterweight title eliminator fight against Liam Paro. This was a huge opportunity and the win would have sent him straight to the top.
He declined because the purse bid was just $303,000, and he was offered 40% of that amount – less than $120,000. He said that Matchroom Boxing declined all attempts for negotiations for a higher offer.
We are telling you this because it implies that Barboza is not making more money than four years ago, despite fighting better opponents and being one fight away from a shot at the world title.
We predict that he will earn around $350,000-400,000 from the Barboza Jr vs McComb purse, primarily because the fight was scheduled for this massive event.
As for his opponent, it is impossible to make a confident prediction about his salary. The only mention of Sean McComb and a “purse” was a case from 2015 when he chased a robber down the street to retrieve the stolen purse of a woman. Fun fact – less than an hour later, he witnessed a second robbery and saved the day again.
Anyway, we have no information about his past earnings from his boxing matches. Based on the fact that he is still low-ranked and this will be his most significant fight, we predict that he will get around $150,000 for this fight. This figure is close to the average guaranteed salaries we see in this weight class.
Whether their salaries will be higher or lower than our predictions, it is a fact that the Barboza Jr vs McComb purse is smaller than the money Haney and Garcia will make per round.
Barboza Jr vs McComb Quick Analysis: Here's Why You Don't Want to Miss This Fight
Money aside, this is a huge opportunity for both fighters and we have to take a closer look at who's actually fighting.
Arnold Barboza Jr. is ranked sixth in the BoxRec division rankings. The American defeated Danielito Zorrilla (unanimous decision) in July 2022 and won the WBO Inter-Continental belt. Eight months later, he successfully defended it in a bout with Jose Perdaza (unanimous decision).
In the last fight, he defeated the South African Xolisani Ndongeni (knockout, eighth round). The 32-year-old Barboza has 29 wins (11 by knockout). Arnold Barboza Jr. will probably fight for a world title next if he wins on Saturday.
As for his opponent, Sean McComb holds the WBO European championship belt, which he won in December 2022 in a fight with Zsolt Osadan (unanimous decision). He carried out two successful defenses. The Irishman first defeated Kaisee Benjamin in May 2023 (unanimous decision). In December of the same year, he defeated another boxer from the United Kingdom, Sam Maxwell (unanimous decision).
The 31-year-old McComb has 18 wins (five by knockout) and one loss. Shawn is ranked 67th in the weight class according to BoxRec.
It is fair to say that for such a low-ranked fighter, there will hardly be a bigger opportunity. And he is certainly the one who can be happy with his cut from the Barboza Jr vs McComb purse as he is not used to getting paid this much.
Vlad is a former amateur MMA fighter. After a series of injuries, he found a different way to connect with the sport and its fanbase - through writing. He's been covering everything-UFC for over 5 years on various platforms and has been part of the team at NYFights since early 2022.
