Fight fans may not have read the confirmation of the number of pay-per-view buys Canelo Alvarez’s September 14 fight with Edgar Berlanga pulled in, but the numbers prove interesting. It’s been reported by multiple sources that the fight in Las Vegas generated a not-too-shabby 650,000 PPV buys. Also, the fight generated a healthy $17 million at the live gate, the fight, of course, taking place at The T-Mobile Arena in Sin City.
These numbers prove that Canelo is still a major attraction, and the numbers are especially impressive when we note how Canelo vs. Berlanga went head-to-head with a huge UFC event that same night, which took place at the stunning new Sphere in Vegas. Well, over half a million PPV buys for a boxing match is good business on any night, even more so when there is some major competition going down that same night and just down the street. Also, who, aside from hardcore fight fans, really knew who Edgar Berlanga was prior to the fight? Also, also, the fight was Canelo’s very first on Amazon Prime. Indeed, the fight was a hit and all who worked on it will be pretty pleased right now.
Oscar De La Hoya, who bashed the fight both before (saying it would flop) and after (De La Hoya said it was dull and we should have saved our money), has been proven wrong by the numbers the Canelo-Berlanga fight pulled in, Oscar having declared before the fight that it would not do 100,000 PPV buys.
Canelo is still, for many, ‘the face of boxing.’ In comparison to the PPV buys the Mexican star’s latest fight drew, the recent Ryan Garcia-Devin Haney fight pulled in around 500,000 buys, while Gervonta Davis against Frank Martin did just 350,000 buys. The biggest PPV hit this year came in May when heavyweight rivals Oleksandr Usyk and Tyson Fury boxed their historic, four-belt unification match; the PPV buys reached 1.5 million.
Imagine how many PPV buys Canelo could generate if he gave us the fight we all really want, with him fighting David Benavidez! Can Canelo hit the 1 million PPV number once again before his career is over?
