Merchant was later informed that Affliction was the actual promoter of the event and not just a sponsor courting De La Hoya as he had earlier ascertained from his conversation with Schaefer.

"This is hard for someone with my experience to compute. When somebody says ‘$5 million sponsorship,’ I have a different interpretation," said Merchant. "This never even occurred to me that Affliction was the guys behind this and that Golden Boy was just putting its brand on it and was not taking any risk and would make money on the end. This is a whole new financial model from what I’ve known in boxing."