By Dan Ambrose: Oscar De La Hoya, the promoter for IBF middleweight champion David Lemieux (34-2, 31 KOs), isn’t expecting his October 17th unification fight against WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (33-0, 30 KOs) to bring in over 1 million pay-per-view buys on HBO PPV. De La Hoya feels that the fight isn’t big enough to bring in that many buys.

Instead, De La Hoya expects it to bring in 350,000 to 500,000 buys on HBO pay-per-view. Those are good numbers, and very similar to what Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Miguel Cotto have been doing when they’re the A-level fighter in their pay-per-view fights.

If Golovkin can receive similar numbers as Canelo and Cotto in PPV numbers, then it suggests that he’s right up there with them in terms of popularity, because those guys only average a little over 300,000 PPV buys when they’re the A-level guy in their PPV bouts. The only times Cotto and Canelo have brought in huge PPV numbers is when they were matched against Floyd Mayweather Jr. and/or Manny Pacquiao.

“When you talk about getting bang for your buck it doesn’t get any better than this,” De La Hoya said to Dan Rafael of ESPN.com. “When you think about the pay-per-view numbers we’re being real here. This is not a million-selling pay-per-view. We’re thinking along the lines of between 350,000 and 500,000 buys. You have to start somewhere, and this is a perfect fight for both guys to start off on pay-per-view. Obviously, we are going to stack the card like there’s no tomorrow. We want to give the fans bang for their buck.”

Those are very good numbers for a fight of this magnitude. Golovkin would obviously get better numbers if he were matched against Cotto, Floyd Mayweather Jr., Manny Pacquiao or Canelo, but getting those guys to ever agree to fight him may prove to be impossible. Canelo is a possibility for Golovkin, but it’ll depend on how good Golovkin looks against Lemieux. If Golovkin totally obliterates Lemieux in one or two rounds by knocking him out with a single shot to the head, then I don’t see Canelo agreeing to fight Golovkin.

If Canelo does agree to fight Golovkin, it would be when he’s at the very tail end of his career at 40, or whatever age Golovkin decides to call it quits. I can see Canelo fighting him at that point. Canelo will be 30 by the time Golovkin hits 40, and maybe at that point Canelo will have a better chance of winning. Of course, boxing fans will wonder why Cotto waited all that time to take the fight with Golovkin, but I’m sure that won’t bother Canelo too much. He’ll have been winning all his fights during those years, and that’s the most important thing.

The Golovkin-Lemieux fight could bring in good PPV numbers if they market the fight correctly. They need an HBO 24/7 series with at least three to four episodes. They’ll need a 4 to 6 city tour of the United States and Canada. Golovkin will need a remake of his image to make him more of a bold trash talker who is willing to be aggressive. He’s playing the nice guy role to the hilt, and I believe he could capture a lot more fans and increase in his Lemieux fight if he turns into the villain role for this fight.

Golovkin needs to realize that the fighters with the biggest fan bases are frequently entertainers who trash talk. Manny Pacquiao is the exception to the rule, but he’s got guys that do his trash talking for him in trainer Freddie Roach. Golovkin has trainer Abel Sanchez, but he’s tame compared to the trash talking that Roach does. It would be far better for Golovkin to turn mean and start giving his uncensored opinions of his opponents.

“In one word: Finally,” Loeffler told ESPN.com. “We’ve gone to great lengths to try to put unification fights together for Gennady. We have to give Lemieux and Golden Boy a lot of credit for stepping up to the plate. Gennady will not underestimate Lemieux. He is the biggest puncher he will have ever faced, and Gennady will be the biggest puncher Lemieux will have ever faced.”

Lemieiux does deserve a lot of credit for taking this fight, because Canelo, Cotto, Mayweather, and Pacquiao haven’t taken it. Neither have Peter Quillin, Andy Lee and Daniel Jacobs. Let’s just hope that Golovkin doesn’t permanently scare away the aforementioned fighters by knocking Lemieux out in short order on October 17th on HBO pay-per-view from Madison Square Garden in New York.