500,000 PPV buys expected for Chavez Jr-Martinez fight on September 15th

By Boxing News - 08/09/2012 - Comments

Image: 500,000 PPV buys expected for Chavez Jr-Martinez fight on September 15thBy Dan Ambrose: Despite not having much of an undercard to speak of for the September 15th HBO pay-per-view fight between WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (46-0-1, 32 KO’s) and Sergio Martinez (49-2-2, 28 KO’s), the organizers for the fight are expecting a half million PPV buys to be generated, according to the Record.com.mx.

500,000 isn’t that many buys compared to the numbers generated when Floyd Mayweather Jr., Miguel Cotto and Manny Pacquiao typically fight. However, Chavez Jr. isn’t a huge name in the United States and neither is Martinez, which is why Top Rank should have packaged the fight with a good undercard instead of the mismatches they put together. There’s no one good fight I can see on the undercard unless you like watching one-sided slaughters.

The fight will be taking place at the Thomas & Mack Center, in Las Vegas, Nevada and it’s going to be interesting to see what the crowd will be in that venue. Chavez Jr has been fighting in Texas recently and he’s been able to take advantage of the large Mexican fan base in the area. However, by having the Chavez Jr-Martinez fight take place in Las Vegas, I can’t see it drawing huge numbers. I know there’s a sizable Mexican population in Vegas, but I still don’t see enough boxing fans showing up to see this fight for it really wow anybody.

At this point it’s too early to be asking boxing fans to pay to see someone like Chavez Jr. Maybe I could understand Top Rank trying to ask people to pay to see Chavez Jr. fight if he’d been facing well known opposition all these years, but that’s not what’s been happening. Chavez Jr. has built up an inflated record against pretty much soft opposition until recently. There’s still not enough names on Chavez Jr’s resume to ask boxing fans to pay their hard-earned cash to see him fight.

Another reason that the Chavez Jr-Martinez fight won’t likely bring in good PPV numbers is because there’s a good card taking place on the same night on Showtime headed by WBC junior middleweight champion Saul Alvarez vs. Josesito Lopez, and this isn’t a PPV card. Boxing fans can tune in and watch a lot of decent fights without having to give up a lot of money.



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