By now it must be obvious that the Ricky Hatton – Floyd Mayweather bout was an incredibly popular bout with the boxing public, but even more shocking are the final PPV numbers, which came out to over 850,000 buys in the United States, including $47 million in TV revenue, according to ESPN. Not bad for a fight that was a mismatch the minute the contract was signed for the bout. However, as good as the numbers were, they paled in comparison to the numbers for the Oscar De La Hoya bout with Floyd Mayweather Jr., which generated 2.4 million PPV buys and $134 million.
That bout had a tremendous advantage over Hatton-Mayweather, simply because of De La Hoya’s huge following among both Latin and Caucasian fans. In contrast, Hatton, a British fighter, is still largely unknown to many American fans, many of whom were hearing him of him for the first time in his bout with Mayweather. Regrettably, due to Hatton’s poor performance against Mayweather, it’s not likely he picked up many fans among the Americans, unless you count fans that felt sympathy for him.