Canelo Alvarez returned to the ring in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, for the first fight of his blockbuster $400 million five-bout deal with the Kingdom’s General Entertainment Authority — and the payday matched the hype.
Despite a tactical, low-output affair that set a record for the fewest punches ever thrown in a 12-round fight tracked by CompuBox, both fighters walked away with significant paydays. Here’s how the numbers break down.
💰 Total Fight Purse & Payout Split
- Total purse: $83,000,000
- Canelo Alvarez’s share: $80,000,000
- William Scull’s share: $3,000,000
➡️ Canelo’s payout accounts for over 96% of the total purse — a clear reflection of his global star power and Saudi Arabia’s investment in his brand.
👊 Per Punch Earnings
With just 445 punches thrown between them, this bout etched itself into the history books — but not for action. It was the lowest combined punch total ever recorded in a 12-round fight by CompuBox.
Punches thrown:
- Canelo Alvarez: 152 punches
- William Scull: 293 punches
Earnings per punch:
- Canelo Alvarez: $80,000,000 ÷ 152 = $526,315.79 per punch
- William Scull: $3,000,000 ÷ 293 = $10,238.91 per punch
➡️ Despite throwing nearly twice as many punches, Scull earned just 1.9% of what Canelo did. For Alvarez, each punch was worth over half a million dollars.
⏱️ Per Minute Earnings
The fight lasted the full 12 rounds (36 minutes), and with 1-minute breaks between each round, both fighters spent 47 minutes from the opening bell to the final one.
Earnings per minute (based on total in-ring time):
- Canelo Alvarez: $80,000,000 ÷ 47 = $1,702,127.66 per minute
- William Scull: $3,000,000 ÷ 47 = $63,829.79 per minute
➡️ Alvarez earned more than $1.7 million per minute, reaffirming his position as boxing’s most lucrative attraction — even in one of his lowest-output performances.
📊 Historic Low Output, Massive Payout
This bout may not be remembered for fireworks, but it will go down in history for its sheer financial scale. The lowest-volume 12-rounder in CompuBox’s 40-year database also produced one of the highest per-punch paydays ever seen in boxing.
With four more fights still to come in his $400 million Saudi deal, don’t expect the money — or the attention — around Canelo Alvarez to slow down anytime soon.
Stay with RingsideTipster.com for more purse breakdowns, predictions, and expert fight analysis.
(Punch Stat data from CompuBox)
