Oscar De La Hoya revealed last week how the fast approaching, biggest fight of the year between middleweight king Gennady Golovkin and Mexican superstar Saul Alvarez will take place in either Dallas or Las Vegas. Talking with Fight Hub TV, De La Hoya also said he is expecting the September showdown to pull in a staggering 3 million pay-per-view buys.
“With the heavyweight division being back with Anthony Joshua, you know with the Keith Thurman fight that was viewed by what, more than 5 million people on prime time TV, with Canelo-Chavez selling over a million homes — we’re expecting close to 3 million with Golovkin and Canelo in September,” Oscar said. “These are the types of fights that bring boxing back, and that’s exactly my mission – is to bring boxing back, bring back that excitement that people used to live for when watching boxing.”
The debate over where the fight should be held – would you prefer Dallas or glitzy Las Vegas? – is secondary to De La Hoya’s extremely debatable claim that the fight will pull in such monstrous TV numbers. 3 million, really? Canelo has some huge fan base and he has managed to pull in well over a million pay-per-view buys in some of his fights; while against Box Office king Floyd Mayweather, Canelo’s fight attracted 2.2 million paying fans.
Golovkin, though, despite being one of the best pound-for-pound fighters on the planet, has never come close to such numbers. De La Hoya himself said, in the run-up to GGG-Canelo being signed, how Golovkin isn’t the “A-side” in this fight. GGG will be boxing the single biggest fight of his career against Canelo, but even here, even with Canelo’s star power, can this fight really achieve 3 million buys? How about 2 million? Between one and 2 million buys seems more realistic in comparison to De La Hoya’s forecast, but one thing seems clear: the pay-per-view record of 4.6 million, held by the Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao, looks safe.
But unlike the hugely disappointing dud that was the misfire that was the so-called “Fight of The Century,” Canelo Vs. Golovkin WILL deliver in the excitement stakes.
