Dan Rafael of ESPN.com tweeted the purses for Saturday night's main event on HBO between Amir Khan and Zab Judah tonight, and it turns out that Khan is making twice what Judah will for the fight, without taking into account other streams of revenue.
The 24-year-old Khan has a purse of $1,072,500 for this fight, while Judah's purse is "just" $500,000. Judah has in recent years seen his paydays fall off after a string of poor performances and losses, followed by wins against mediocre at best competition.
But there has been no major decline in Judah's popularity, it doesn't seem. The Brooklyn native, now 33 years old, still draws attention when you put him in the spotlight, and there's a decent buzz around this fight considering that it's (1) in Vegas, and (2) not a huge event. Non-huge event fights are generally not helped "buzz"-wise by being in Vegas, but this one seems to be doing OK. A lot of people are talking about it, and Zab deserves his credit there. He's a name people know, and has a lot of fans. He also has a lot of detractors who pay attention to him.
On top of Khan's $1 million-plus purse, he'll also have all of the UK TV money. The fight is being aired there on Primetime for £14.99.