Canelo-Chavez Jr. estimated at 1 Million PPV buys

By Boxing News - 05/09/2017 - Comments

Image: Canelo-Chavez Jr. estimated at 1 Million PPV buys

By Dan Ambrose: Last Saturday’s fight between Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. may not have been a good fight, but the pay-per-view numbers are looking very, very good for their fight on HBO. According to Dan Rafael, he’s hearing from a source the Canelo vs. Golovkin fight will bring in a minimum of 1 million buys on HBO PPV. This is great news for boxing because it means that Canelo’s next fight against Gennady “GGG Golovkin on September 16 will bring in MONSTROUS numbers on HBO PPV.

Golovkin will bring in his own fans that will combine with Canelo’s diehard loyal fan base to make their fight a huge, huge affair in a little over 4 months from now. The fans that purchase the Canelo vs. Golovkin fight will almost surely be getting the great fight that they thought they were getting when they purchased the Canelo vs. Chavez Jr. fight.

”No official numbers yet for Canelo-Chavez PPV but I’m told it will be at least 1 million buys. A huge number for the fight. #boxing,” said Rafael.

Golden Boy’s decision to pick Chavez Jr. as Canelo’s opponent instead of a good fighter ultimately blew up in their face when he decided not to fight back last Saturday. The lack for foresight by Golden Boy in selecting an overweight Chavez Jr. was what led to the fight being so one-sided. Chavez Jr. admitted that he started training at 215 lbs. in getting ready for the fight. Chavez Jr. had to lose 51 pounds to get down to the 164.5 pound catchweight for the Canelo fight.

There was way that Chavez Jr. could lose that kind of weight and still fight at a high level. Chavez Jr. was horrible in his fight against Andrzej Fonfara in 2015, which he lost by a 9th round knockout. That was really the last good opponent that Chavez Jr. fought before facing Canelo last weekend. Chavez Jr. was little more than a punching bag in the Fonfara fight for 9 rounds until quitting on his stool before the start of the 10th round.

The only thing that you can hope for is that the fans that purchased the Canelo-Chavez Jr. won’t be furious at Canelo and Golden Boy enough to want to stay away like the plague for his next fight against Triple G, despite it promising to be such a great fight compared to the dud the boxing fans just paid for in seeing Canelo beat Chavez Jr.

You have to remember that a lot of fans were equally angry and Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao for their dud in 2015. The PPV buys for both fighters dropped off in a dramatic way in their next fights. Pacquiao’s PPV buys still haven’t come back to their previous levels. Of course, Pacquiao’s promoter hasn’t matched him against a popular fighter since his loss to Mayweather, but I wouldn’t be surprised if his numbers remain low even if he does eventually start fighting better opposition.

The fans of Canelo failed to see that the Chavez Jr. fight would be a mismatch, and they spent their hard-earned money on a fight that looked more like a sparring match than an actual fight. Chavez Jr. chose not to let his hands go and play it safe for 12 rounds. Chavez Jr’s trainer Nacho Beristain said that his fighter was afraid to throw punches.

“Really negative, everything, totally, we didn’t win a round. It’s not possible to cover the sun with a finger, Canelo Alvarez was simply better technically,” said Beristain about Chavez Jr. to ESPN Deportes.

It goes without saying that Chavez Jr. was totally overmatched by Canelo. But what Beristain isn’t saying is that Chavez Jr. was so incredibly bad, he would have been blown out by anyone in the middleweight division or even the junior middleweight division. Chavez Jr. looked shot, weight drained and totally over-matched. As Max Kellerman pointed out, Chavez Jr. hadn’t earned his way to the fight. He was just picked out to fight Golden Boy, who wished a great fight happen, but ultimately didn’t. It was a bad gamble on Golden Boy’s part and it turned it to be a total failure.

You don’t make gambles like when you’re trying to build the fan base of your star Canelo. You make smart gambles by matching your fighter Canelo only against talented fighters in their prime, not weigh drained fighters that saw their best disappear in the rearview mirror 5 years ago in Chavez Jr.

“I asked him to throw punches, simply to throw punches, but he was afraid to throw a jab or a certain combination because he knew that [Canelo] would return with three or four punches and those doubts were born early and stayed with him for the whole fight,” said Beristain.

It was not appropriate for Chavez Jr. to be so hesitant to throw punches in such an important fight. Chavez Jr. is a brawler, and he’s always been one of those fighters that would have to eat punches in order for him to land his own punches. For Chavez Jr. not to throw punches out of fear of being countered, then what was the whole point of him being out there in the ring?

Chavez Jr. should have quit on his stool if he wasn’t going to throw punches for fear of being hit with two or three of Canelo’s counter punches. Beristain should have pulled him out of the fight once he saw his fighter wasn’t going to make a fight of it against Canelo. Many of the boxing fans inside the T-Mobile Arena were irate at the lack of punches being thrown by Chavez Jr. last Saturday.

Chavez Jr. will be continuing his boxing career, and he’ll remain with Beristain. It should be interesting to see whether Beristain is able to turn his career around and make something out of him. I don’t think he’ll be able to do that. Beristain is saying that Chavez Jr. was afraid to throw punches. What’s going to make Chavez Jr. unafraid in the future to throw punches against an opponent that will have good hand speed and counter punching ability that will be able to do the same thing that Canelo did? I think there’s a pattern here with Chavez Jr. choosing not to throw punches when he faces good fighters with power and hand speed.

“They have every reason [to be disappointed], me too. He must also be frustrated, his dad too, everyone. He should apply himself behave like a boxing pro and success will come to him,” said Beristain about the boxing fans being disappointed with Chavez Jr.

At 30-years-old, I don’t know if Chavez Jr. is ever going to be able to apply himself to behave like a pro. If he’s not been able to do that by this age, it’s hard to picture Chavez Jr. being able to suddenly start behaving like a pro moving forward. Whether Beristain will continue to work with Chavez Jr. in the future is the big question. Beristain has worked with a lot of good boxers in the past. It must be tough on Beristain to work with someone so frustrating like Chavez Jr.

Canelo wanted to fight Chavez Jr. of some of the negative things that he’d said about him over the years. It’s too bad Canelo didn’t pick a more talented fighter that has criticized him in the past. At least the boxing fans would have seen a good fight if Canelo and Golden Boy had picked someone Daniel Jacobs or Jermall Charlo. Both fighters have criticized Canelo previously. He didn’t get his back up and want to fight them.

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