It is official. The September 16th HBO pay per view broadcast of the longtime anticipated middleweight championship clash between Gennady Golovkin and Canelo Alvarez was wildly successful as it netted 1.3 million buys at minimum. Boxing is alive and well in 2017.
While of course this fight was never going to do the numbers of the Mayweather/McGregor freak show fight, 1.3 million buys as reported by the Los Angeles Times is still an enormous amount. The fight excited too with both Gennady Golovkin (37-0-1, 33 KOs) and Canelo Alvarez (49-1-2, 34 KOs) fighting at very high levels, though it was marred a bit by controversial scoring in the end.
Golden Boy Promotions is disputing this number via a published statement, however, and is insisting that the final tally will be much higher than 1.3 million when all sources are counted. They are claiming not only are traditional outlets still tabulating, but that online purchases such as from Ring.TV or SlingTV have not been added in yet. We will see just how high this number can climb.
Big money for everyone should only make next year’s rematch, presumably in May, that much easier to negotiate.
