By D.A: Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (44-1-1 31 KOs) is riding a 2 fight win streak with successful PPV numbers going higher and fighting tough opponents. Canelo will be targeting this upcoming week to meet with his promoters at Golden Boy promotions to discuss his next fight. While James Kirkland is the front runner, things won’t be clear until the meeting happens according to Canelo’s manager Jose “Chepo” Reynoso.
You have to wonder whether this fight will be PPV or not. While Canelo did say he was fighting 3 times in 2014 and all 3 were PPV, you wonder if Golden boy and Showtime will consider having the fight on regular Showtime rather than PPV. Recently PPV numbers have been lower than usual even with stacked undercards such as Mayweather and Maidana in May earlier this year. The fight was rumored to have done 850-900K buys but no numbers were released due to Showtime declining to release any PPV numbers unless they hit above 1.5 million according to Stephen Espinoza, who also noted the “masses” misunderstand everything and always come to conclusions that the PPV didn’t sell when the numbers aren’t released.
With that he stated numbers on Showtime will not be released as of now. HBO the rivaling network criticized Showtime for not releasing PPV buys for certain fights and also said they weren’t afraid to release PPV buys no matter what. So with promoters and networks wanting to make every decent fight PPV such as Golovkin vs Froch which is not PPV worthy at all and will not sell- you wonder if Canelo’s next fight will be a regular card or PPV?
In my opinion Canelo vs Kirkland if the fight is made, should be on a regular card rather than PPV due to 2 PPv cards prior to that being showcased. Floyd Mayweather will fight Marcos Maidana in a PPV above $70, and Manny Pacquaio will fight Chris Algieri. Alot of fans can’t afford to buy PPV fights every other month and promoters are causing inflation in the market by making fights such as Sergio Martinez vs Miguel Cotto PPV or Timothy Bradley vs Juan Manuel Marquez.
It’s a good thing Bob Arum and HBO will not sh0w Miguel Cotto’s next fight on PPV but rather on regular HBO. I just hope Goldenboy and Showtime will do the same with Canelo. Otherwise I’m certain Canelo’s numbers will go down and the numbers for any fighter will get worse and worse. They obviously want to set up a 2015 megafight between Canelo and Cotto, so Showtime should consider using Cotto’s idea to preserve the numbers. And while Mayweather vs Maidana 2 will sell about the same as last time maybe worse, Manny Pacquiao vs Chris Algieri in Macau will be very disappointing. We all saw last time Manny’s PPV fight in Macau sold and it was with a fighter coming off a loss ad moving up in weight and virtually unknown to casual fans-Brandon Rios. Algieri is even more unknown and definetly not familiar to casual fans and even some hardcore fans. So lets hope promoters and networks get smarter and stop being greedy.
Comments are closed.