BoxRec

In truth, expectations going into the fight were rather tempered considering that neither Ward nor Kovalev had been on PPV before and neither is a particularly big draw. So RingTV’s reported number of roughly 160,000 PPV buys certainly sounds about right.

It still is a bit of a shame, though. Kovalev-Ward was a truly competitive fight between two top pound-for-pound fighters which ultimately lived up to it’s hype, despite a rather controversial ending.

In that sense this number has to be at least a little disappointing because this fight truly represented the best of what boxing has to offer, even though it was absent any mainstream star-power to carry the promotion. So, just to put things in perspective, Manny Pacquiao’s perceived mismatch against Jessie Vargas just a couple weeks earlier did nearly twice as many PPV buys (roughly 300,000) than Kovalev-Ward did.

It is possible that the close proximity of those two PPV’s adversely affected the latter’s performance, but I don’t really buy into that theory. As good as both Kovalev and Ward are, neither one of them transcends the niche boxing audience, which I think has much more to do with the number of sales (or lack thereof).

Now, with all signs pointing towards a rematch, one has to wonder if Part II might not be better suited for a standard HBO telecast.

davie wrote:That's pretty poor, they must have expected more for the biggest fight of the year

DannyMCR wrote:That's 10% of what UFC has done combined this year, and people say UFC is the new boxing

DannyMCR wrote:That's 10% of what UFC has done combined this year, and people say UFC is the new boxing

ginty wrote:

Tanzio wrote:

davie wrote:That's pretty poor, they must have expected more for the biggest fight of the year

It was the biggest fight of the year for us, not the casual fans. It did about what should have been expected.

Cue the entrance of the I told you so clown(s).

My father in-law was in Vegas when the fight was on and said there's wasn't a big deal about it and if I hadn't of told him about the fight he wouldn't of known it was on

DannyMCR wrote:That's 10% of what UFC has done combined this year, and people say UFC is the new boxing

jujigatame wrote:

DannyMCR wrote:That's 10% of what UFC has done combined this year, and people say UFC is the new boxing

What do you mean? UFC 200 did over 1 million buys and I think UFC 205 did around 1.5 million.

Riddick Blowe wrote:Can someone explain to me why the promoters chose not to do their job and actually promote this fight properly? I still can't work it out.

Also...what about the rematch clause? How does Ward get out of that?

Impractical Poster wrote:Ward didn't do himself any favors by his performance in enhancing any future PPV successes for himself either. This is why I believe someone like Ward is bad for the sport. His style does not appeal to the casual viewer. Even a lot of hard care fans are turned off by his tactics. So, now you have people buy his PPV and are let down.

The fight was decent, but only really while watching in real time. And if it weren't for Kov trying to make something exciting happen, it would have been a complete stinker.

Ruthless-RKO wrote:

Impractical Poster wrote:Ward didn't do himself any favors by his performance in enhancing any future PPV successes for himself either. This is why I believe someone like Ward is bad for the sport. His style does not appeal to the casual viewer. Even a lot of hard care fans are turned off by his tactics. So, now you have people buy his PPV and are let down.

The fight was decent, but only really while watching in real time. And if it weren't for Kov trying to make something exciting happen, it would have been a complete stinker.

He seems to have gathered hate. Keep that up and he'll have haters buying his fights to see him get KO'd, just like Mayweather haters.

zorndeslammes wrote:No real promotion with the biggest name attached to the fight contractually unable to do anything (Jay-Z). HBO had very little to lead into this contest and get fans hyped. Neither guy was established on PPV. Ward's TV viewership fell through the year. Lots of factors involved, and probably little or nothing will be learned.

Here's the bottom line though: Ward demanded big money for the fight to happen, so to get that money, PPV became a necessity. Kovalev could have gone through with the Stevenson purse bid and let Haymon win and have to pay for the fight from his own pocket or drop belts. Instead, not only does Kovalev lose this fight, he doesn't get the big shine of network TV/big Showtime exposure and Main Events eats a lot of expenses to put it on.

No rematch. Ward, I hear, fulfilled his contract to HBO. He's a free agent in a market that has no real demand for his services at the prices he demands. Might be awhile before he fights again.

Riddick Blowe wrote:... what about the rematch clause? How does Ward get out of that?

Ruthless-RKO wrote:http://www.badlefthook.com/2016/11/29/1 ... 0-ppv-buys

No one was expecting a big number, and a big number didn’t appear

In truth, expectations going into the fight were rather tempered considering that neither Ward nor Kovalev had been on PPV before and neither is a particularly big draw. So RingTV’s reported number of roughly 160,000 PPV buys certainly sounds about right