Canelo vs. Smith

By Patrick McHugh: Mexican star Saul Canelo Alvarez’s fight against against WBO junior middleweight champion Liam Smith last month on September 17 brought in an attendance of 51,240 fans at the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. It was thought to be the most ever paid fans in the history at the stadium for a boxing event. However, according to Dan Rafael, the Canelo-Smith fight is No.2 drawing fans in the AT&T Stadium behind the Manny Pacquiao vs. Joshua Clottey fight that took place in 2010.

That fight drew 46,371 paying fans compared to the 46,115 paying fans the Canelo vs. Smith fight. Canelo-Smith had an overall attendance of 51,240 fans, but of that total, there were 5,125 complimentary [free] tickets given away to boxing fans for whatever reason. The Pacquiao vs. Clottey fight had 50,994 fans.

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By Dan Ambrose: Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya is saying that his flagship fighter Saul “Canelo” Alvarez brought in slightly less than 300,000 pay-per-view buys on HBO for his fight last month against little known World Boxing Organization junior middleweight champion Liam Smith on September 17 at the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

De La Hoya is quite pleased with the numbers despite the fact that it’s a considerable drop off for the 26-year-old red-headed star from his previous fight against Amir Khan last May, which brought in 450,000 buys on HBO PPV.

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By Dan Ambrose: While Saul “Canelo” Alvarez’s fight against WBO junior middleweight champion Liam Smith was said to have brought in a low number of pay-per-view buys on HBO on September 17, the fight was seen by 18 million viewers in Mexico on free television on Azteca 7, according to ESPN. Having the Canelo-Smith fight televised on the Mexican Independence day holiday weekend likely help increase the viewers for the event.

It wasn’t much of a fight despite the claims by Canelo’s promoter Oscar De La Hoya about Smith being the best fighter in the 154lb division. Smith didn’t look like the best in taking a beating from a one-handed Canelo until the fight was halted in the 9th after Smith was knocked down by a left to the body.

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By Dan Ambrose: The pay-per-view results for Saul Canelo Alvarez’s fight against Liam Smith are starting to filter in and they’re not looking good for last Saturday’s Canelo-Smith fight on HBO PPV from the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. According to Lance Pugmire of the LA Times, the pay-per-view buys are from 250,000 to 300,000 for the Canelo vs. Smith fight on HBO.

This is obviously not good news for Canelo and for his promoters at Golden Boy Promotions. It means that the boxing fans were not interested in purchasing the Canelo-Smith fight on HBO PPV, which isn’t surprising though given that the 28-year-old Smith was a little known fighter to the casual fans in the U.S.

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By Dan Ambrose: Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (48-1-1, 34 Kos) suffered a fractured right hand in his 9th round knockout win over WBO junoor middleweight champion Liam Smith last Saturday night, and the injury will keep the Mexican star outside of the ring for the remainder of 2016.

This is certainly bad news for Canelo and for his promoters at Golden Boy, as they were hoping to squeeze in one more fight this year, possibly against WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders. Canelo will likely be fighting next in May 2017 on the Cinco de Mayo holiday weekend. This is supposedly the last fight for Canelo until he faces unbeaten IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (36-0, 33 KOs) in September 2017.

Here’s the press release from Golden Boy:

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By Gerardo Granados: Last Saturday at the AT&T, Arlington, Texas, as expected Saul “Canelo” Alvarez defeated an inexperienced and over-matched but brave Liam Smith to win the light middleweight WBO belt. So in an era in which a group of so called big names care only to take the fight fans money but not for giving their money worth a new king have arrived.

Years ago we saw a World Champion engage in ten round bouts against not so dangerous opposition. It was a common practice among many of the most famous fighters. Now a day instead of have a titlist or a mere belt holder fighting on a stay busy fight at ten rounds, we get to see a mismatch sold on pay per view. But that is not the worst thing happening in prize fighting. No, the worst thing is that many fan boys are not only unable to notice it but are even less willing to acknowledge it.

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