By Jeff Aranow: The recent mega fight between IBF welterweight champion Errol Spence Jr. and Mikey Garcia brought in over 360,000 pay-per-view buys on Fox Sports on March 16 for their fight in front of a large crowd of 47,525 fans at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, according to ESPN. The fight broadcast will bring in at least $27 million, according to ESPN.
The win for Spence pushed him to #5 in Ring Magazine’s pound-for-pound list, ahead of #6 Gennady Golovkin. That’s big news for Spence’s boxing fans, because GGG has been looking very good in the last seven years and has been a huge fan base in the United States in a short period of time.
The PPV numbers are still being tabulated, but they could ultimately hit 400,000 buys, which is a very good number for Spence and Garcia, who had never headlined a PPV card before. In this day and age with all the illegal piracy in pay-per-view in boxing, 400,000 buys is an excellent number. The Spence-Garcia fight sold for $75 to $85 on Fox Sports PPV.
For a lot of boxing fans, it’s a lot of money to pay. That’s why it was disappointing that many of the fights on the card were one-sided affairs in which the A-side fighter easily beat their B-side opponent. The main event was no exception. Garcia never stood a chance against Spence, and it looked to some like he never put for much of an effort to win. The fans will have a memory of this fight, and they might not be so eager to see Mikey Garcia fight on future PPV broadcasts if he’s going to continue go through the motions and just to survive.
The two unbeaten stars went it in a fight that turned out to be disappointingly one-sided with Spence (25-0, 21 KOs) beating the previously undefeated Garcia (39-1, 30 KOs) by a lopsided 12 round unanimous decision by the scores 120-107, 120-108 and 120-108.
The four division world champion Garcia moved up 2 weight classes to try and do the unthinkable in toppling the bigger and strong Spence. As expected, Garcia was beaten easily.
Fox isn’t expected to realize an official number for the PPV buys for some reason. Perhaps it doesn’t play well when the numbers are released, as fans could see as a reason to avoid future pay-per-view cards if the numbers are low for a particular fight or fighter.
The 360,000 estimated PPV buys for the Spence vs. Garcia card on Fox tops the 325,000 buys generated for the heavyweight clash on December 1 between WBC champion Deontay Wilder and Tyson Fury in a Premier Boxing Champions PPV card on SHOWTIME. One reason obviously for the bigger pay-per-view numbers for the Spence-Garcia fight is the fact that both of the fighters are American, and well known.
Tyson Fury is from England, and he’d been out of boxing for close to three years before making a comeback recently. Further, Wilder isn’t considered the best heavyweight in the division. Anthony Joshua, so it was always going to be a problem of attracting a large PPV audience for the Wilder vs. Fury fight.
If the PPV buys for the Spence vs. Garcia fight holds steady at 360,000 buys, it would come in just below the 400,000 buys the Manny Pacquiao vs. Adrien Broner fought pulled in on January 19 on SHOWTIME PPV. Pacquiao, 40, used to be a big pay-per-view star when he fought on HBO, and routinely would pull in over 1 million buys. That was during the zenith of Pacquiao’s career and likely before piracy of PPV broadcasts gotten to the level where it’s at now.
Spence’s next fight in June or August. There’s no word yet for who his opponent will be, but it’s going to be interesting to see if he can continue to fight on pay-per-view moving forward from the Garcia fight. Before signing a monstrous contract with DAZN, Saul Canelo Alvarez proved that he could fight on pay-per-view against anyone and bring in respectable numbers.
If Spence’s popularity has been increased with his win over Mikey Garcia, he could be the next PPV star in boxing. What might hurt Spence is the way that he chose to box instead of fighting in his normal exciting manner in which he bulldozes his opponents. Spence says he was bothered by comments the boxing critics made ahead of his fight with Garcia, saying that he only knows how to overpower his opponents and bludgeon them into submission.
So instead of fighting with his normal seek and destroy fighting style, Spence caved into the critics by boxing Mikey from the outside most of the fight. It wasn’t wasn’t exciting to watch, apart from the ninth round. Spence failed to see the big picture about his fight with Mikey. The spotlight was on Spence, and he could have won over a massive amount of new fans if he’d fought in an exciting style.
Spence decided to fight in a Mayweather-esque style, staying on the outside, jabbing and only rarely opening up with his power shots. It was a conservative approach to the fight by Spence, and not the right one for a PPV broadcast. When fans have to pay a lot of money to see a fight on PPV, they would want to see knockouts in the main events, not pure boxing between a bigger guy against his smaller, and weaker opponent.
Spence’s next fight could be against WBC welterweight champion Shawn Porter. Normally would seem like a fight that would be destined to be a war from start to finish, but not necessarily. Porter boxed for 12 rounds in his last fight against Yordenis Ugas in winning a close 12 round split decision on March 9. If Spence and Porter both choose to box in a unification fight between them, it could be a dull affair on Premier Boxing Champions PPV.
Spence-Garcia was expected to be a one-sided fight from the moment it was made. Garcia, 5’6″, was much smaller than the 5’9 1/2″ Spence, and this wasn’t lost on the odds-makers. They had Spence, 29, a clear favorite going into the fight. Despite all that, there were many boxing fans and former fighters that thought Mikey had a chance to pull off an upset of Spence.
The fans had failed to watch closely how badly Mikey had struggled in his fight last year against former IBF light welterweight champion Sergey Lipinets. Mikey took a beating against Lipinets, and was the beneficiary of some very generous scores by the judges. That fight looked more like a draw or a win for Lipinets based on him landing the harder, cleaner shots the entire fight. Spence took an unusual approach to beating Mikey by deciding not to use his size, reach and power advantage against him.
Spence decided to just box for 11 of the 12 rounds. What Spence did in effect was give Mikey a handicap by not looking to smash him with his size. But even with the handicap, Mikey still badly lost to Spence, because he lacked his boxing skills and pedigree. What Spence showed to the world is that Mikey is a good fighter, but he’s been winning his fights based on his punching power his entire career rather than his skills.
“The game is to be smart; it’s the sweet science,” Spence said. “I had the size and reach advantage, so why not use it to take away the jab? It’s a weapon for me, and it takes away one of his weapons.”
Spence landed 345 of 1082 punches for a 32% connect rate, according to CompuBox’s statistics. Mikey landed just 75 of 406 shots for a 18% connect rate.