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ByFormer WBA lightweight champion Brandon Rios’ career may be on the brink of implosion on Saturday night if he gets beaten by Argentinian slugger Diego Chaves (23-1, 19 KOs), but he’s still getting paid very well by his promoters at Top Rank.

For his fight against Chaves, Rios will be getting $925,000, which is by far the biggest purse for all the fighters on the card at the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.

Rios has lost his last two fights, and it’s looking pretty bad for his career outlook if he gets beaten by Chaves. But Top Rank sees Rios as being worth close to $1 million for this fight despite his losses. I wonder if we’re going to see change in that area if Chaves does as number on Rios and knocks him out. Being Rios’ B-side doesn’t seem to pay well at least for this fight.

Dan Rafael of ESPN said “Purses for Sat’s HBO card as per Nevada commission: Rios $925k, Chaves $25k (but more via Argentina TV), Vargas $120k, Novikov $105k.”

$25,000 seems to be a really low figure for a fighter as talented as #10 IBF Diego Chaves. After all, he’s actually ranked in the top 10 in the welterweight division and has the better record than Rios. It doesn’t see hardly fair for Chaves to be getting that much less than Rios, does it? Rios isn’t ranked in the top 15, and is coming off of a loss to Manny Pacquiao, as well as a suspension.

With Chaves only making $25K, it makes you wonder whether there were other guys that Top Rank was considering for the fight for Rios that may have wanted more than that low figure. It’s interesting Anton Novikov (29-0, 10 KOs), who will be fighting Top Rank promoted WBA light welterweight champion Jessie Vargas (24-0, 9 KOs) in the co-feature bout, is getting a purse 4X the amount of Diego Chaves at $105,000. What’s up with that? Chaves is fighting in the main event, but his purse is far smaller than Novikov. It’s strange. Novikov isn’t ranked as high as Chaves, but he’s still getting a far bigger purse.

If Chaves knocks Rios out on Saturday or beats him the way that Pacquiao did, it should help Chaves get bigger paydays in the future. He’s someone that needs to be fighting more in the U.S if he wants to get the bigger paydays and not end up with the small money.