By Isaac Marin: This past Cinco de Mayo weekend, WBC middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (47-1-1, 33 KOs) inserted the finishing touches to a scripted bout with Amir Khan (31-4, 19 KOs) by way of knockout in the sixth round. The perceived mismatch is now being rumored to have brought in a little under 600,000 pay per view buys on HBO.
What many boxing experts are considering as positive numbers, many fans are deeming 600,000 pay per view buys as a failure for the fight. Thanks to the numbers that Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao have generated in the past, anything under 1 million buys for someone who is considered as a up and comer or a super star is going to be scrutinized for not being able to hit that mark.
Here are Canelo’s first three pay per view bouts:
Floyd Mayweather: 2.2 million buys
Alfredo Angulo: 350,000 buys
Erislandy Lara: 325,000 buys
Canelo has fared evenly with Pacquiao and Mayweather.
Pacquiao’s first three PPV bouts consisted of 350,000 buys against Erik Morales, 400,000 for his second fight against Juan Manuel Marquez, and it wasn’t until Pacquiao faced Oscar de la Hoya is when he reached over the 1 million mark with 1.25 million buys.
Mayweather on the other hand reached 340,000 buys against Arturo Gatti, 374,000 against Zab Judah, and surpassed the million mark against Oscar De La Hoya with 2.45 million buys. All three fighters carried their own weight when headlining a pay per view card and when facing an opponent with great credentials all three fighters saw a boost in numbers. Although Canelo was bashed for picking a fight with the smaller Khan, managing to bring in 600,000 buys for a fight that was believed to be a huge mismatch should be considered a success especially with the idea that Canelo’s mismatch bout out performed that of Pacquiao’s and Mayweather’s.
As for Gennady Golovkin, his lone pay per view bout against David Lemieux reached 150,000 buys, but had a gate revenue of 2 million and sold out Madison Square Garden, beating out the Antonio Margarito vs. Miguel Cotto 2 as the top boxing seller. With numbers and revenue on Canelo’s side many boxing fans predict that Canelo will avoid a mega fight with Golovkin in order to preserve his status as the face of boxing. The fight will happen, the only issue that will cease the progress of negotiating the bout is Canelo imposing his will as the A-side for the fight and placing absurd demands such as the catch weight of 155.
What we boxing fans need to understand is that mentality of the best fighters fighting the best has died and this era of boxing has become more about the numbers and whether or not a fight adds up. To some extent, that mentality is nothing to look down on as boxing is a dangerous sport and a fighter never knows when it’s his last fight so it is good for a fighter to capitalize on a certain amount that fighter feels could best suit him, but to deprive the fans of great fights for a long period of time due to the risk-reward ratio is what keeps this sport from flourishing even more.
Both Canelo and Golovkin have proven themselves as being able to carry bouts and bring in the reward, now it’s up to Canelo and Golovkin to risk it in the ring. Canelo should fight Golovkin at 160 as Golovkin should fight Andre ward at 168 instead of 164 if catch weights are such an issue for him. Boxing needs fights like these in order to retain its greatness like in the 70s, 80s, and early to mid-90s. Whether these bouts come to fruition with the integrity of the fight being fought at its divisional weight and occurring at the time we the ans want to see is something we need to wait and see on.