Legendary boxing matches – Legendary boxers: The one-million-dollar gate

Author: Zizi

There are matches, which are never to be forgotten, and there are boxing icons, who are going to stay with us for eternity.

We always talk about the legendary fighters but it is also important to note that professional boxing is a huge business and it has always been. Do you need proof? More than 100 years ago, in 1921 was the first fight ever, which has exceeded the one-million-dollar revenue.

Tex Rickard, considered the first boxing promoter, had a dream to organize the biggest boxing match in the world. To do this, he hired around a 100 man to build a special boxing arena in Jersey City.

The construction took one year, the capacity of the wood Arena was more than 80,000 seats and Rickard set up the “Match of the Century” between the heavyweight champion of the world, Jack Dempsey and the challenger, the light-heavyweight champion, Georges Carpentier.

All of the tickets were sold for the match (the price was from $5 to $50 for the tickets), which totally generated a $1,789,238 revenue to Rickard and thanks to that, this fight was the first one-million-dollar match in the history of boxing. By the way, Rickard’s profit was around a million dollar because the cost of the construction and both fighters’ wages were around a total of $750 000.

The match ended in the second minute of the fourth round, when Dempsey knocked out Carpentier.

Source: thefightcity.com