According to a news story in The Los Angeles Times, the May 7th middleweight title fight between Mexican star Saul Canelo Alvarez and British star Amir Khan generated a not too shabby 600,000 pay-per-view buys. An industry source told the paper the fight did “just shy” of 600,000 buys. Once again – even in a fight many people moaned and groaned about, some even calling the fight Alvarez won by crushing KO a gross mismatch – 25-year-old Canelo showed his star power.
Only a few fighters are capable of achieving these kind of numbers, and today, with Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao retired from the sport, Canelo is the top pay-per-view draw in the world. And just imagine how many numbers Canelo would/will draw if/when he fights Gennady Golovkin. It’s not going overboard to suggest this fight, optimistically eyed for this coming September, could go over the 2 million mark. Just how big the price tag will be for this middleweight blockbuster – arguably the biggest middleweight world title fight since Sugar Ray Leonard upset Marvelous Marvin Hagler in 1987 – remains to be seen.
Will fight fans have to fork out close to $100 for the privilege of seeing this can’t miss battle? Canelo has enjoyed huge numbers in the past, his losing fight with the aforementioned Mayweather (The undisputed pay-per-view king) attracting over 2 million buys. The fight against Khan, while not anywhere near a record breaker, did very well, but the Golovkin fight promises to blow 600,000 out of the water. It won’t top the monstrous numbers the biggest pay-per-view hit in boxing history pulled in – over 4.4 million for Mayweather Vs. Pacquiao – but the middleweight unification bout might generate around half those astonishing numbers.
And, as we all know, Golovkin-Canelo will be a far, far better action fight than “The Fight of The Century” wound up being. Maybe they should have saved that tagline for this fight – if it happens of course, and who out there hasn’t got their fingers crossed right now!