By Allan Fox: Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya is predicting 3 million pay-per-view buys for the September 16th mega-fight between Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (49-1-1, 34 KOs) and Gennady “GGG” Golovkin 37-0, 33 KOs) on HBO PPV. This might sound like another one of De La Hoya’s overly ambitious predictions for the number of buy rates, but he could be right this time. It’s a match-up that will show whether Canelo can carry the sport on his back the way De La Hoya believes he can do.
There’s tremendous interest in the Canelo-Golovkin fight that we haven’t seen since the 2015 contest between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao. That fight brought in 4.6 million PPV buys on HBO/Showtime. It an awful fight pitting two fighters that were past their best, playing it safe and doing very little to make it exciting for the many boxing fans that had paid good money to see the dud live at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada and on pay-per-view. There hasn’t been a fight nearly as intriguing as the Canelo-GGG fight since Mayweather-Pacquiao. Nothing compares to Canelo vs. GGG. 3 million PPV buys is definitely achievable given the right level of marketing of the fight.
Unlike Mayweather and Pacquiao, Canelo and Golovkin are still in their prime, and neither of them is injured with a bad shoulder like Pacquiao. Canelo and Golovkin will be looking to go to war to make it exciting for the boxing fans. That’s the mental make-up of Golovkin and Canelo. They want to entertain the fans, and they don’t need an excuse to let their hands go.
Some would say that Mayweather-Pacquiao mortally hurt boxing and the PPV industry with the way that the two fighters under-performed. We’ll never know for sure if this dreadful fight hurt boxing, but we do know that the PPV numbers have not been great since this fight. Mayweather’s PPV numbers were dramatically down in his next fight against Andre Berto in 2015 before he retired after that match. Pacquiao’s PPV numbers have been dropping off as well in a huge way, but we don’t know if it’s the Mayweather fight that did it or the lackluster match-making his promoter Bob Arum is doing for him by matching him against his Top Rank fighters instead of guys that the boxing fans want to see him fight.
”With Canelo-Chavez selling over a million homes, we’re expecting close to 3 million with Golovkin and Canelo in September,” said De La Hoya to Fighthub.com. ”These are the types of fights that bring boxing back, and that’s exactly my mission – is to bring boxing back, bring back that excitement that people used to live for when watching boxing. So little by little we’re chipping that block and hopefully making it happen.”
Canelo vs. Golovkin is just a great fight and it’s coming at the right time. Golovkin is still fighting at a high enough level at 35 to make it an interesting fight, and Canelo is just now hitting his prime at 26-years-old. It’s two middleweight warriors that are going to produce fireworks inside the ring on September 16. Someone is getting knocked out in this fight.
I don’t know who it will be, but it’s going to be one of these big punchers. Golovkin is going to put it on the line to try and please the boxing fans, because that’s the way that he fights. He’s a pure slugger. Canelo will be trying to impress as well because he’s facing a guy that is made to order for his counter punching style of fighting. Canelo was trying to get his last opponent Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. to open up with his heavy artillery so that they could entertain the boxing fans that had paid to see the contest, but Chavez Jr. wouldn’t do it. He wasn’t going to fight like a warrior for the fans, which is really unfortunate this was a fight that could have been so great if Chavez Jr. had gone along with the program.
Canelo vs. Golovkin will help bring boxing back in a major way. However, the Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor fight could mortally wound boxing with their circus fight that is expected to take place in late 2017. Mayweather-McCregor has got mismatch written all over it, and there could be a lot of very angry casual boxing fans after this one is over. If those fans blame boxing for this terrible match, they could turn their backs on purchasing other PPV events in the future for a long time. Some of those fans might not ever come back to boxing. It’s not as if there isn’t competition from other contact sports like MMA and football.
3 million PPV buys would be great for Golden Boy, Canelo and Golovkin. With those kinds of PPV numbers, it would awfully hard not to justify a second fight between the two fighters in December. You want to strike while the iron is still hot, and it doesn’t make sense for Golden Boy and Canelo to kick the Golovkin rematch down the road into 2018. You never know what can happen with either fighter. Canelo could be fighting a rematch against Miguel Cotto in December.
Cotto gave Canelo problems with his boxing in their fight in 2015. You can bet that Cotto wouldn’t veer away from his boxing like he did the last time and try and slug with him. That was a mistake for Cotto. It’s better for Canelo to fight Golovkin in an immediate rematch instead of fighting Cotto. With Golovkin, he has pressure on him to fight a rematch with Danny Jacobs. That would be a tough fight as well for GGG. Jacobs was really tough fight for Golovkin last March. Golovkin won a narrow 12 round decision, but there were more than a few boxing fans that through that Jacobs had done enough to rate a win.
“It’s between Dallas and Las Vegas so I have my meetings set already, all this week and next week, and hopefully I can have an answer for you in a few days,” said De La Hoya about the venue for the Canelo vs. Golovkin fight.
Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is interested in staging the Canelo-Golovkin fight at his huge 90,000 seat AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. You can bet the stadium would fill to the brim in a sellout for a Canelo vs. Golovkin. Canelo brought in over 50,000 boxing fans for his fight against former WBO junior middleweight champion Liam Smith last September. Canelo’s fans purchased tickets in high numbers to see him fight Smith despite this being a little known fighter. The fans just wanted to see Canelo in age. Canelo is hugely popular in the Texas area.
The Canelo vs. Golovkin fight might bring in more money if it’s staged in Las Vegas, Nevada. However, it would make the Canelo-Golovkin event look much more impress if De La Hoya were to have it take place in front of a jam packed AT&T Stadium filled with over 90,000 boxing fans. The fans that are watching the fight at home would be very impressed with the numbers.
The visual image of Canelo fighting in front of that many people would be a big positive for his career. It would be like when Muhammad Ali fought Ken Norton at Yankee Stadium in New York on September 28, 1976. We recently saw IBF heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua fight Wladimir Klitschko in front of 90,000 boxing fans on April 29 at Wembley Stadium in London, England. What a great event that was.
“What was that movie, ‘show me the money,” said De La Hoya. ”No, no, it’s all about where the fans want it. I mean, look, we’ve been having polls on ESPN and all over on the web on the internet, and it’s all about where the fans want it and a lot of fans are saying they want it in Dallas. It’s almost split right down the middle. A lot of people want it in Vegas because of the whole excitement and Vegas and the lights and action and so I have my work cut out but I’m sure I’ll decide on the perfect place for this fight.”
Having Canelo-Golovkin take place in Vegas would definitely make it fun for the boxing fans that are coming into the area to see the fight. Staging the fight in Arlington would make it less fun for some boxing fans. What can they do in Arlington?
Canelo is taking a considerable step up in facing GGG. This is by far the most dangerous opponent that Canelo has faced in his 12-year pro career. Canelo has been in with some good fighters like Floyd Mayweather Jr., Austin Trout, Erislandy Lara and Liam Smith, but none of them had the punching power that Golovkin will be bringing to this fight. That’s going to make it tough for Canelo because it’s such a huge jump up from the fighters he’s been facing. Lara and Trout played it safe with Canelo by not looking to slug with him. Mayweather didn’t have any punching power. James Kirkland, who Canelo knocked out in 3 rounds, was little more than rusty journeyman and not a top level fighter.
