By Michael Montero: Boxing fans are buzzing about the big card this Saturday night, as the “Big Drama Show” (Golovkin-Lemieux) and “Little Drama Show” (Gonzalez-Viloria) one-two punch takes over New York City. But can the HBO Boxing pay-per-view event – a joint promotional venture between K2 and Golden Boy – exceed not only the lofty expectations of action inside the ring, but profitable business outside of it? A lot of potential money and negotiating power is on the line depending on whether the card is a box office hit or a dud. What are the implications either way? Let’s take a look.

In a recent interview with boxing writer Steve Kim, K2 Promotions chief Tom Loeffler addressed the sales target for the card. “Anything over 200,000 buys is considered a success” he said, “and HBO is very optimistic on the numbers that they are projecting.” If one does the math it is quite simple – 200K buys at $50 a pop and you have $10M dollars; half of which automatically goes to the PPV provider, the other half is split among the promoters. Ticket sales at the venue, a completely sold out Madison Square Garden, should generate in the neighborhood of $4M. The official purses have not officially been released, but it will be career high paydays for each of the four main fighters. For the “A-side” of the card, who has been earning $1-1.5M purses over the last year, his paycheck Saturday night will likely triple that amount.

In terms of business, should this card outperform expectations and become very profitable for all parties involved (fighters, promoters, network, venue, etc.); it changes the stakes for GGG going forward. Not just for him – or his handlers or potential opponents or even HBO – but the entire sport. In the wake of Floyd Mayweather’s retirement, we are left without an official “face of boxing”. Many have anointed Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez as the new heir to the pound for pound throne, but that position does not necessarily equate to the consensus “face” of the sport. That distinction is generally given to the fighter who crosses over into the mainstream, and no other boxer has the most potential of doing that than one Gennady Gennadyevich Golovkin.

The process has already begun, with GGG being nominated for the “Fighter of the Year” award by ESPN at their annual ESPYS show earlier this year. Just last week, Apple released a commercial featuring the Kazakhstan native shadowboxing while wearing their “Apple Watch”. But can it all carry over to PPV sales? That is the question this Saturday. And it’s not only GGG’s handlers who want to know the answer, but the rest of the middleweight division as well. To date Golovkin has been a “high risk low reward” fighter, after Saturday night he could become “high risk high reward”; and that could mean big things for boxing fans over the next couple years.

The biggest cash cow in the sport after Mayweather is Mexican superstar Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, who fights on his own PPV card against linear middleweight champion Miguel Cotto next month in Las Vegas. Canelo has already proven he’s a reliable PPV attraction, and had the Mayweather-Pacquiao not already taken place this year, his bout with Cotto would have undoubtedly been the blockbuster event of 2015. Should Golovkin and Canelo both not only kick butt in the ring, but at the box office in their upcoming high-profile bouts, it sets up the biggest potential match in boxing. And unlike the so-called “fight of the century”, this bout would feature two fighters who are not only the same size, and in their physical prime, but who come forward and look for the knockout.

It all starts this Saturday night inside Madison Square Garden. The fans want to see a Big Drama Show inside the ring, and the rest of the middleweight division will be hoping for Big Drama Sales.

Questions, comments, hate mail – you know what to do. Twitter/Youtube/Instagram/Facebook: @MonteroOnBoxing