By Charles Brun: Matchroom’s Frank Smith believes the Anthony Joshua vs. Dillian 2 rematch is a mega-fight that the British public is dying to see and willing to pay £26.99 on top of their DAZN subscription for their event on August 12th on pay-per-view.
Smith predicts the Joshua-Whyte 2 fight will bring in 1 million buys on PPV and says it’s the biggest. Those numbers are staggering, given the adverse reaction from fans on social media to this fight.
The British fans that paid for their DAZN subscriptions thinking they were going to be able to see Joshua & Canelo Alvarez as part of their yearly/monthly subscriptions have got to be hopping mad right now.
Canelo Alvarez is no longer with DAZN, having signed a three-fight deal with PBC, and Joshua’s fights are on PPV.
Smith seems to be in denial about how the played out the 33-year-old Joshua (25-3, 22 KOs) and Whyte (29-3, 19 KOs) are at this point in their careers. If this were eight years ago, maybe the lofty 1 million Smith is talking about would be possible, but not anymore.
This fight has little hope of bringing anywhere close to 1M buys, but you can never underestimate what the UK is willing to buy.
For example, Tyson Fury’s fight with 39-year-old journeyman Derek Chisora sold out the 62,850-seat Tottenham Hotspur Stadium last year. The fans didn’t care that Chisora had lost 3 out of his last 4 fights. They still gleefully bought tickets to see this horror.
If British fans were willing to see Fury beat up Chisora, they might be keen on paying £26.99 to watch Joshua fight Whyte, who has arguably lost 3 out of 4 fights. Whyte is another Chisora type.
“I think this can do anywhere between seven hundred thousand to a million,” said Frank Smith to iFL TV when asked how many PPV buys Anthony Joshua vs. Dillian Whyte does.
Will Joshua vs. Whyte 2 bring in 1 million buys? Joshua already knocked out Whyte in 2015, and there’s no reason for a second fight. It’s not like that was a competitive match-up.
It was only interesting for the first two rounds, and after that, Whyte was exhausted and was just a punching bag for AJ from rounds three to the bitter end in the seventh.
Will Joshua-Whyte bomb on PPV?
“No, I want it to do the numbers I’ve set,” said Smith when asked if he’d be satisfied with more realistic numbers of 400,000 buys for Joshua-Whyte 2.
“You only have to look at Anthony Joshua is that he’s broken the record time and time and time again and in his biggest fights, I think he did 1.25 million in his biggest fight, 1.2 in another 1.15.”
Joshua’s popularity has taken a huge hit, thanks to Oleksandr Usyk beating him twice. Smith & Hearn are pricing Joshua’s with Whyte like AJ was still a world champion at the top of his game rather than a shot guy.
“No one else has done that, and this fight has all of the ingredients to create a build-up to hit those numbers,” said Smith. “It’s on every platform. It’s on DAZN. You can buy it everywhere.
“So exposure is going to be key. That’s going to be simple because everyone’s going to want to see this fight. I truly believe it can do those types of numbers, and you know, look at Dillian Whyte as well.”
Smith sounds like someone that is out of touch with reality with him, thinking fans are still interested in seeing Joshua fight Whyte. Yeah, there was interest many years ago, but Hearn waited too long to put the rematch together.
Do fans still want to see Joshua fight Whyte? Maybe it was complimentary, and the public had nothing going on that night, then maybe.
AJ vs. Dillian = “biggest fight”
“You’re putting in the two; you’ve got Fury obviously, but the two biggest active British heavyweights right now in the ring together really like outside of Fury,” said Smith. “It’s the biggest fight out there, so I believe it can do those types of numbers.
“I’m sure everyone with an opinion will still buy it and watch it. 26.99 is the set pay-per-view price for the event itself. So on pay-per-view, that’s going to be the price of the pay-per-view with the subscription separately. I think that’s the right price. Name me a bigger British pay-per-view. It’s huge,” Smith said about the Joshua vs. Whyte 2 rematch.
Eddie Hearn must be pleased with how Frank Smith is hyping up this creation. He’s like a chip off the old block.
“We all the numbers that the first one generated. It’s massive,” said Smith about the Joshua-Whyte rivalry. “There’s spite between them. This fight has everything you need from the fight, and it’s quite easily the best heavyweight fight that is up and running right now.
“I believe the show could sell out a stadium. I think it’s going to be an interesting build-up because there’s a lot of spite between the two of them. There’s been history for many, many years,” said Smith.
