By Sean Jones: Triller Fight Club is taking a huge risk in pricing the October 4th fight between Teofimo Lopez and George Kambosos Jr. at $49.99 on FITE PPV instead of the $19.99 that it was originally supposed to go for. The fight card is taking place at Madison Square Garden in New York.
The $49.99 is arguably WAY too high for a fight that boxing fans have very little interest in watching between undisputed lightweight champion Teofimo and Kambosos Jr.
Teofimo-Kambosos competing with Raiders vs. Chargers
What compounds Triller’s problems with this card is that it’ll be going up against the Oakland Raiders vs. San Diego Chargers football game on Monday night on October 4th.
Competing against the Raiders-Chargers, which will be attracting a lot of interest from U.S boxing fans, will take a huge bite out of the possible PPV buys the Teofimo vs. Kambosos fight will bring in.
In hindsight, the management at Triller Fight Club should have taken a hard look at the Monday date for the Teofimo-Kambosos fight and understood that it would be a BAD idea to go up against the Raiders vs. Chargers game.
If fans have to choose between paying $49.99 to watch a mismatch between Teofimo and the little-known Kambosos (19-0, 10 KOs) or watch a highly interesting Raiders vs. Chargers game on regular broadcast television, you can predict what they’ll be watching on the night.
Teofimo is so much better than Kambosos that it’s not even funny, and this fight is clearly not PPV worthy. Beyond that, Teofimo isn’t helping himself sell the mismatch by him coming out this week saying that he WON’T be giving Vasily Lomachenko a rematch.
Teofimo’s reasoning? Because he believes that if the shoe were on the other foot, Lomachenko wouldn’t have given him a rematch had he been victorious a year ago when they fought in October 2020.
Fans weren’t born yesterday. They know a duck when they see it, and Teofimo shows the hallmark signs of a risk-averse fighter, who wants no part of a healthy Lomachenko, nor does he want to fight Devin Haney or any of the other four lions in the lightweight division.
Teofimo is now saying he’s going to up to 140 and challenge undisputed champion Josh Taylor. However, few boxing fans believe what he’s saying because he’s been less than a risk taker at 135. We’re likely going to see Teofimo move up to 140 and then go after one of the Mickey Mouse belts.
Will Triller take a bath on this fight?
At this point, this fight is likely to bring in a trickle of buys. It’s unclear what Triller’s break-even point for Teofimo vs. Kambosos Jr. fight, given the huge $6 million they bid on it. There’s also the cost of the musical entertainers that Triller will have part of the Teofimo-Kambosos Jr. show on October 4th.
For Triller to make back their money, it’s likely going to need to sell many buys, and I don’t see that happening. At best, Teofimo vs. Kambosos brings in 100,000 PPV buys. At worst, no more than than 70,000, and it’ll be a pure disaster, a real dumpster fire on October 4th.