Golovkin-Lemieux tickets selling fast for possible sellout

By Boxing News - 08/12/2015 - Comments

Golovkin1FBy Dan Ambrose: When the Gennady “GGG” Golovkin vs. David Lemieux fight was first made, it was inconceivable that the fight would be a big enough one to sellout Madison Square Garden in New York. But after two days in the early pre-sale of tickets, over 6,000 have already been sold.

Today was the official release of the tickets, and it’s likely a lot more tickets have been sold for this interesting fight. There is still two months to go before the fight takes place on October 17th, and it’s quite possible we could see all the tickets sold out for the 21,000+ seat venue.

The Golovkin vs. Lemieux fight broke the pre-sale ticket record, which is a pretty big deal. If it’s breaking the pre-sale ticket record then there’s a good chance that the fight bring in a lot of PPV buys on HBO.

“GGG-Lemieux presale is over. Tix on sale to general public. $500, 300, 200, 100, 50 at via MSG & Ticketmaster. Boxing big drama show,” Dan Rafael said on his Twitter. “I’ll say it now — based on the matchup, the undercard and the ticket prices GGG-Lemieux is going to be a sellout or damn close. #boxing. How hot is GGG-Lemieux? It broke the Garden presale ticket record.”

Golden Boy Promotions president Oscar De La Hoya hadn’t made any bold predictions about this fight bringing in a huge attendance or a lot of pay-per-view buys when it was first announced, but you have to believe that he’s smiling from ear to ear at the way the tickets are being sold. If this any indication about the way that fans will be purchasing the fight on PPV, then this fight is going to bring in huge PPV numbers.

For a fight like this, 800,000 PPV buys would be a tremendous showing, because it’s the first pay-per-view event for Golovkin and for Lemieux. Guys like Miguel Cotto and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez are considered the tier 2 PPV sales fighters once you get past Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao. Cotto and Canelo bring in 300,000 PPV buys when they’re the headline act and not matched up with Mayweather or Pacquiao. But if Golovkin can leap frog Canelo and Cotto to put himself up there with Mayweather as a tier 1 PPV fighter, it would shake up the boxing world and show what boxing fans are really interested in seeing.

Instead of seeing prima-donnas insisting on fighting at catch-weights each time and fighting a lot of mediocre opposition, boxing fans seem to be more interested in seeing a fighter who knocks guys out every time out and who is fearless in Golovkin.

“Fans have responded by showing their support for this show,” Golovkin promoter Tom Loeffler of K2 Promotions said to ESPN.com. “We priced the tickets very reasonably and will put on a great show for them Oct 17. We have been trying to get another champion to fight GGG, and David Lemieux is the first to agree to risk his title, so we give him and Golden Boy a lot of credit.”

Cotto’s rematch with Antonio Margarito in 2011 sold out Madison Square Garden with 21,239 tickets sold. Cotto needed help from Margarito to sell out the Garden, however. In the recent heavyweight clash between IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko and Bryant Jennings last April, it sold 17,056 tickets.

The Golovkin-Lemieux is still trailing those two fights, but there’s still two months to go before the fight on October 17th, and it’s very possible that the tickets will be sold out well before then. That would be a tremendous accomplishment for Golovkin, because he’s a relative newcomer and he doesn’t have a huge built fan base like Cotto and Canelo both do in the United States.



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