Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis is being talked about as headlining Premier Boxing Champions’ first card with Amazon Prime Video PPV in March against an opponent still to be determined.
Mike Coppinger says Gervonta could be PBC’s first Amazon Prime Video PPV in March.
No name or date has been mentioned for PBC’s #1 fighter, Gervonta (29-0, 27 KOs), for the debut for Al Haymon’s company with Amazon Prime Video for the March pay-per-view event, but it’s believed Isaac ‘Pitbull’ Cruz (25-2-1, 17 KOs) will be the opponent in a rematch of their 2021 fight.
PBC has done a lot of in-house fights in the past with their match-making, but that won’t work if they want to keep their fighters happy by making as much money as possible.
Given that fans have zero interest in seeing a second fight between Tank & Pitbull Cruz, PBC could lose money on this event, especially if the financial burden is on them rather than on Amazon Prime Video for their events.
The 29-year-old Gervonta’s last fight against social media star Ryan Garcia brought in over 1 million PPV buys, but that was largely due to the 11 million+ Instagram followers for the Golden Boy fighter.
PBC & Tank can’t replicate the 1M PPV buy numbers against Pitbull Cruz, and it’s not going to work dragging out Ryan Garcia for a rematch because fans aren’t going to want to pay to watch him quit again.
According to Rick Glaser, Amazon is “providing the platform, distribution & marketing,” and PBC will need to cover the financial aspect. That means either PBC puts together fights fans want to see, or their fighters will take huge pay cuts.
Fighters like Tank will likely get low-guarantee purses and need to depend on the upside to generate big money. Tank and other PBC fighters would need to work hard to promote their fights on social media, and they would need to be matched against opposition that fans would be willing to pay to see them on PPV.
That’s bad news for Gervonta because he’s been fighting primarily beatable opposition in his PPV events on Showtime, but he can’t do that on Amazon Prime Video if most of his money will come from pay-per-view.
Gervonta Davis’ past Showtime PPV events
- Ryan Garcia – 1.2 million buys
- Hector Garcia – 220,000
- Rolando ‘Rolly’ Romero – 275,000
- Mario Barrios – 210,000
- Leo Santa Cruz – 225,000
It would be risky for PBC to put their fighters in with poor opposition with zero chance of winning. So, it would be smart for Haymon to look for someone that fans want to see fight Tank Davis in March, like one of these fighters:
Devin Haney
Shakur Stevenson
Frank Martin
Raymond Muratalla
William Zepeda
With PBC’s other fighters like inactive champions Keith Thurman & Andy Ruiz, for example, it’s going to be problematic to put those guys on Amazon Prime PPV, as fans don’t want to see older or inactive guys in headliner spots.
It’s fine to stow those guys away on undercards where they can’t be seen, but putting them in main events is not going to work because they won’t bring in many buys. Thurman would be a good lamb for IBF welterweight champion Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis to destroy, but Keith has turned down the fight.
