By Dan Ambrose: Mayweather Promotions CEO Leonard Ellerbe and Eddie Hearn went back and forth on social media today over the pay-per-view numbers for last weekend’s trilogy fight between Canelo Alvarez and Gennadiy Golovkin.
Ellerbe did a bit of gloating after industry insider Dan Rafael reported that the Canelo vs. Golovkin III fight brought in between 550,000 and 575,000 buys on DAZN PPV.
According to Rafael, those numbers are “disappointing,” and he doubts that they’ll cover the $75 million in purses paid out to Canelo (58-2-2, 39 KOs) and Golovkin (42-2-1, 37 KOs) for their headliner last Saturday night at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
DAZN reported that the total buy rate was 1.06 million buys for the Canelo-Golovkin III fight. However, Rafael says those were global numbers and not for the United States, which charges more for their pay-per-view than other countries.
DAZN hasn’t reported the total revenue pulled in for the Canelo vs. Golovkin III fight yet. That would clear up a lot of things if they revealed that to the public because it would shed light on whether the buys will cover the $75 million in purses for Canelo and Golovkin.
He might need a little cheering up so let’s sing him a song “Ain’t No Sunshine At DAZN” 🤦🏽♂️ https://t.co/5IHoG9yfwq
— Leonard Ellerbe (@LEllerbe) September 21, 2022
😂😂 Stop it Edward, thought I’d send you a lil song to cheer you up. Let me know if you need me, Floyd, Stephen or Al to show you how to do the big boy stuff. 😂 GTFOH
FYI Every major player over here is laughing at you. You don’t know what the fk you are doing in the US.💯 https://t.co/ETDeXVsFv4— Leonard Ellerbe (@LEllerbe) September 21, 2022
No time to be going bk and forth w you, trying to get big boy shit done, you know that record breaking stuff you know nothing about. Hope you cheer up mate! 💪🏾 https://t.co/ETDeXVsFv4
— Leonard Ellerbe (@LEllerbe) September 21, 2022
That would still be a PPV buy, not a subscription. They didn't say "buys from subscribers." They said 1.06 million including "PPV buys" and "subscriptions". So they're counting subscriptions as part of buys.
— Stephen Espinoza (@StephenEspinoza) September 21, 2022
You can’t it’s lies, lies. Mad because he overpaid and the PPV underformed drastically and he can’t run that other bullshit to any of us. Remember this is the same guy that spent millions and millions of $ on a campaign to push “PPV is Dead” https://t.co/Tcg2qUGRD4
— Leonard Ellerbe (@LEllerbe) September 21, 2022
The 1st Canelo-GGG fight did 1.3M PPV buys in the US. The rematch did 1.1M PPV buys in the US. The 3rd is going to be between 550k-575k in the US, per sources. DAZN's announcement of 1.06M is PPV buys for the ENTIRE WORLD. Apples to oranges.
— Dan Rafael (@DanRafael1) September 21, 2022
If the PPV numbers don’t balance out to cover the costs of the huge purses for Canelo and Golovkin, it’s unclear what DAZN would be looking to prove by reporting the event pulled in 1.06 million buys.
It was a bad idea to make the Canelo vs. Golovkin fight at this point in their careers because there’s no longer a lot of interest in the fight. Golovkin has one damage to his carer by choosing to face non-elite fighters in the last four years, and the fans have forgot about him.
“Janibek [Alimkhanuly] or [Yamaguchi] Falcão, the Brazilian guy that we promote,” said Bob Arum of Top Rank to Fighthype when asked who Gennadiy Golovkin should fight next after his loss to Canelo Alvarez last Saturday.
“I mean, those fights are easy fights to make, and they’re winnable fights for GGG, but they’re not affordable because he’s, it’s not his fault, he’s coming off a deal where I think he made in his last fight $30 million dollars. Nobody is going to pay him anything like that to fight one of those guys,” said Arum about Golovkin.
