Chris Algieri turned professional in 2008, and for the better part of the next six years, despite 19 wins in succession without a loss, was one of the thousands of anonymous boxers who was fueled more by a dream than by massive paychecks.

The largest purse Algieri made in his first 19 bouts was $15,000 for a difficult bout on ESPN2’s “Friday Night Fights” against Emmanuel Taylor on Feb. 2, 2014.

Algieri had developed a nice following in the New York metropolitan area and routinely sold out the Paramount Theater when he fought.

Given taxes, training expenses and what he needed to pay his team, he barely was above the poverty line.

But 2014 was the year that life changed dramatically for Algieri, a slick boxer who dreams of one day becoming a doctor.

The win over Taylor earned him an HBO bout against Ruslan Provodnikov and a career-high purse of $115,000. An upset win there enabled him to hit the jackpot, a $1.67 million purse to fight Manny Pacquiao in Macau on Nov. 23, 2014.

Getting the bout was a win not only for Algieri but for his long-time promoter Joe DeGuardia of Star Boxing. Most shows, DeGuardia said, lose money and the majority of the money for a promoter comes when he has a fighter reach the big-time.

“All the money is at the top,” DeGuardia said. “I wouldn’t recommend to anyone to just get into boxing to promote club shows unless you really love it and want to be around it, because there isn’t money in that.”

Algieri recently signed a deal to fight the highly regarded Errol Spence Jr. on April 16 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn in a Premier Boxing Champions show on NBC.

Algieri, who declined to tell Yahoo Sports his purse for the bout against Spence, said he asked DeGuardia for the disclosure information per The Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act that fighters in matches of 10 rounds or more are required to get from their promoters.

The Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act was signed by former President Bill Clinton and went into law on May 26, 2000.

It has three purposes, according to Section 3 of the law:

• (1) To protect the rights and welfare of professional boxers on an interstate basis by preventing certain exploitive, oppressive, and unethical business practices;

• (2) to assist State boxing commissions in their efforts to provide more effective public oversight of the sport; and

• (3) to promote honorable competition in professional boxing and enhance the overall integrity of the industry.

DeGuardia, Algieri said, declined to give him that information. He’ll eventually get it since it’s required by law, and will likely be delivered on the day before the fight at the weigh-in.

“I’ve been having problems for some time,” Algieri said. “This fight offer that’s come up, I’ve been asking for certain information regarding the terms and conditions of the Spence bout and the bout agreement and [DeGuardia] is not willing to divulge. He’s been willing to do that in the past, in past fights. It kind of raised a red flag for me.

“It’s strange that information I’ve been privy to in the past and that’s going to come out anyway because I’m entitled to it under the Muhammad Ali Act, he’s not giving it to me when I asked for it explicitly.”

The Ali Act was designed to provide greater transparency for boxers so they can more fairly negotiate their purses for fights, providing them an insight into the revenues a promoter makes.

According to Section 13, paragraph b, subsection 1 of the act, a promoter must disclose to a fighter “the amounts of any compensation or consideration that a promoter has contracted to receive from such match.”

Subsection 2 requires a promoter to detail for a fighter “all fees, charges, and expenses that will be assessed by or through the promoter on the boxer pertaining to the event, including any portion of the boxer’s purse that the promoter will receive, and training expenses.”

But the act doesn’t specify when promoters are required to make the disclosure. Fighters aren’t in positions of strength when they find out the information after the fact, if they’re given the details at the weigh-in, long after they agreed to terms and gone through a training camp to prepare.

Boxers are not paid unless they step into the ring and fight. All of the work has been completed by the weigh-in but that’s often the first time a boxer will learn of all the revenues a promoter is receiving for a bout.

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