By Barry Holbrook: Last Saturday’s Showtime doubleheader featuring Jermall and Jermell Charlo is expected to bring in only 100,000 to 120,000 pay-per-view buys. Mike Coppinger and Yahoo New. At 120K, buys for the Charlo brothers’ PPV card are dismal numbers.
The Showtime organizers should have realized that it’s too soon for the Charlo brothers to be put on pay-per-view.
Neither of them has ever fought any big names during their respective 12-year professional careers, and they looked poor in their record fights against Matt Korobov and Tony Harrison.
Charlo twins doubleheader competed with UFC 253
What makes it even worse is that both Charlo brothers were on the same card, yet the card still isn’t expected to go above 120,000 buys. The excuse why Showtime’s Charlo doubleheader failed to bring in a higher amount of buys is the fact that it had competition from UFC 253 and the NBA Conference final.
It probably wouldn’t have better if the Charlo brothers didn’t go up against UFC 253 and the NBA conference final. The Charlo twins doubleheader was always going to have problems bringing in many PPV buys due to the high cost of the card and the lack of big-name opposition.
Right now, we’re in the middle of the pandemic, and it was an insane move on Showtime Charlo twins doubleheader to price the event at $75 on PPV. That’s a huge amount of money, and it was a terrible time to ask that much from fans to watch the Charlo brothers make their debut into the pay-per-view world.
If Jermall were fighting a popular guy like Gennadiy Golovkin, Canelo Alvarez, or David Benavidez, the event would have brought more buys. Instead of fighting those guys, Charlo took on Sergiy Derevyancheko, a fighter that had lost 2 out of his last 3 fights. How do you get boxing fans excited at wanting to pay $75 to watch Charlo fight a guy with that many losses?
You can argue that it is just plain naivety on the part of the Charlo doubleheader event organizers. Getting casuals to buy a fight card filled with guys they’ve never heard of or seen was a mistake.
Household names needed
If you put the Charlo brothers on the first PPV card, they needed to fight household names that the casuals knew and respected. Casual boxing fans have no idea who Derevyanchenko or Jeison Rosario is.
Ultimately, the low PPV numbers will hurt Jermall’s chances of getting a fight against Canelo Alvarez because he won’t be able to point to them to show that he’s a worthy opponent, who can bring in a lot of money.
If Canelo were to fight him now, he could offer him a low 90-10 or 80-20 purse split, and tell him, ‘Take it or leave it.’ Jermall wouldn’t have the numbers to back up his case that he deserves a decent purse split against Alvarez.
If the Charlo twins continue to do PPV fights despite the poor numbers, they’re going to need to be packaged together like last weekend. Additionally, the pay-per-view prices will have to come way down to a more fan-friendly number that reflects their popularity.
Instead of asking fans to pay $75 to see the Charlo brothers fight, they need to drop it to the $40 range, and then hope that people will be willing to pay that price.
The Charlo’s opposition wasn’t good enough
The logical thing for the Charlos to do would be to face better opposition. There’s nothing wrong with Jeison Rosario and 34-year-old Derevyanchenko as fighters.
They had talent, but they’re not well-known, and both are flawed. Besides all the recent losses for Derevyanchenko, he’s too small to be fighting at 160. The guy should be fighting at 154 because he’s never going to beat any of the huge fighters at 160.
Jermall needs to fight these types of opponents for future PPV events:
- David Benavidez
- Gennady Golovkin
- Demetrius Andrade
- Ryota Murata
- Caleb Plant
- Canelo Alvarez
- Daniel Jacobs
- Billy Joe Saunders
You have to throw in super middleweights because Jermall Charlo is essentially a boiled down 168-pounder who chooses to fight at 160 instead of here he should be fighting.
Sources: Showtime’s PPV doubleheader featuring the Charlo twins is “expected to generate more than 100,000 buys with a chance to top out at 120,000. PPV debut for Jermall and Jermell, and they went up against NBA Conference Final and UFC 253,” said @MikeCoppinger.