Big fights then and now

I understand there is a title fight this weekend. I wonder how many sports fans know or care?

It is a cliché that box has lost popularity. It is hard to imagine just how big boxing used to be.

In his biography of Jack Dempsey, Roger Kahn puts it into perspective:

[Babe] Ruth's annual salary was fifty thousand dollars. (It eventually reached eighty thousand dollars). ... Any year he chose to fight, the heavyweight champion could gross a million dollars from his fists and his irresistible persona.