Dan Hardy has made a stunning claim about the pay he’s going to receive from his exhibition boxing match against Diego Sanchez.

For years now fans have been waiting to see if and when Dan Hardy would return to active competition. While it may not be happening in mixed martial arts, Hardy will in fact be competing later this year when he battles fellow veteran Diego Sanchez in an exhibition boxing showdown on the same card as Ricky Hatton’s return to the squared circle.

A lot of eyebrows were raised when the match-up was first announced but during a recent interview with Ariel Helwani, Hardy took the time to explain the financial benefits of taking this fight.

“Look at Nate Diaz, for example. I know he’s making decent money with the UFC, but can you imagine what he’d be worth in a couple of fights outside the UFC. It’s crazy. And somebody’s making that money. We all know it — $175 million for Crypto.com [sponsorship], that money’s going in people’s pockets, and it’s not building the sport, and we all live off the sport. This is what we do and what we love, and there’s people skimming massive amounts of money off the top of it, and we’re all sitting here watching it.

“This is the turning of the tide when people like Diego and I, we make a bit of money toward the end of our career, because this is what we do, we’re prize fighters and people put a prize on the table – the one that’s standing at the end takes the prize. Then we move on and we open up our own gyms and keep this sport moving forward, because the skin suits at the top aren’t going to do it. They’re going to keep lining their pockets.”

“You could add all my paychecks together from the UFC and I’m still making more doing this.”

Quotes via MMA Fighting

Are you excited to see Dan Hardy vs Diego Sanchez?