Last Saturday, Floyd Mayweather made $25 million for stepping
into the ring to face Oscar De La Hoya’s young fighter, Victor
Ortiz. (Mayweather will probably end up with much more than that
by the time it’s all said and done.) Ortiz made about 10% of
that, which is meaningful. It’s not meaningful because of
whether or not it’s a lot of money (not much compared to
Mayweather, but a ton compared to most everyone reading). It’s
meaningful because in the whole scheme of things, it’s part of
why Floyd Mayweather doesn’t have to fight Manny Pacquiao.  If
Floyd Mayweather can swing deals that would allow him to rake in
90% or more of the total purse whenever he fights, he doesn’t
need to risk what makes him boxing’s biggest draw. In Eric
Raskin’s historical Grantland piece on the Sugar Ray Leonard and
Marvin Hagler fight from 1987, there’s a quote uttered by Seth
Abraham, former president of HBO Sports about one of the
differences between Leonard and Hagler. He described Hagler as
someone who cared about his legacy