By Tim Fletcher: Boxing fans are going to be asked to open their wallets this Saturday night and dig deep to come up with the $49.99 to watch the middleweight contest between IBO/WBA middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (33-0, 30 KOs) and IBF belt holder David Lemieux (34-2, 31 KOs) on HBO pay-per-view. I’m just saying.

Yes, there are a lot of fans willing to pay to see the Golovkin-Lemieux fight, but I think there are going to be a lot of them rebelling at the idea of paying to see fighters that they’ve previously seen for free on HBO. When you get free samples of a product, you’re not exactly excited when you suddenly have to pay to get more of that same product.

Having regular HBO is expensive enough in terms of your monthly bill in the U.S, but when you have to pay an additional $49.99 to see one night of boxing, it can hurt your pocketbook. Your cable bill goes from $150 to $200 for just one month. Cable is expensive in America, especially when you have your internet and phone tied into a triple play package.

The question is should be fans have to pay to see this fight when neither of these fighters have ever fought on PPV before? It’s a question that only the fans can answer for themselves, but it’s something that is going to have ramifications for Golovkin and Lemieux’s careers.

If the boxing fans aren’t willing to shell out the $50 to see this fight, it’s going to leave the fight with low PPV numbers, and this could make it difficult for Golovkin to get a fight against the winner of the Saul “Canelo” Alvarez vs. Miguel Cotto fight. After all, they would have needed excuse to use for justifying never facing Golovkin. All they would have to say is that he’s not a PPV fighter.

The Golovkin-Lemieux card is a decent one in terms of the undercard. You’ve got WBC flyweight champion Roman Gonzalez (43-0, 37 KOs) defending his title against #1 WBO, #2 WBC Brian Viloria (36-4, 22 KOs) in the co-feature bout.

It’s a decent fight, but I’m not sure that the boxing fans will get excited about small 112lb fighters facing each other. Fan interest in the U.S seems to slow down and pretty much stop at the 140lb division. Even the interest in that division isn’t that high.

The casual boxing fans are more interested in fights in the 147, 168, and 175 and above 200. The divisions that are skipped are junior middleweight and cruiserweight. Fans might not be too interested in the Gonzalez-Viloria fight.

The Golovkin vs. Lemieux undercard fights are as follows [Note: not all of these fights will be televised]:

Luis Ortiz vs. Matias Ariel Vidondo

Tureano Johnson vs. Eamonn O’Kane

Ghislain Maduma vs. Maurice Hooker

Lamont Roach Jr vs. Jose Bustos

Ruslan Madiev vs. Azriel Paez

“I’m ready. It’s now or never. He’s at his best, I’m getting to my best. We took a big step, and we’re ready for it,” Lemieux said. “Everybody understands the gravity of this fight. I think people are going to be surprised with what I bring to the table.

Lemieux is the underdog in this fight, and he’s really going to need to bring his best to the ring to keep him from getting knocked out. If the fight were a more competitive affair between two guys that were evenly matched in a 50-50 fight, then it would make sense for the fight card to go for $49.99 on HBO PPV. But with Lemieux such an underdog in this fight, it doesn’t quite make sense for the fight to be on PPV.

“I’m a big underdog, which is perfect by me. It’s not a problem. I know who I am. I have a lot of confidence in myself,” Lemieux said.

Lemieux has done a good job in the last few weeks about not making an issue of him being an underdog, but it’s obviously an issue for fans because they’re the ones being asked to pay to see this fight on HBO PPV. Lemieux has tried to make light of him being an underdog, but I think it’s not going to convince a lot of people to spend their money on purchasing the fight card if they don’t feel it’s going to be competitive.