BoxRec

Let's take a look at the PPV's following May/Pac..

Floyd/Berto: This fight did exactly what I'd expect it to do. No Mexican in the main event. The opponent not coming off a big win. Not much promotion for this fight.

GGG/Lemieux: I think the boxing public was surprised this fight sold so poorly. We read about boxing everyday and pay close attention to the sport. Because we're in the boxing bubble it's hard for us to see from the outside in. From the inside GGG was the hottest thing in the sport. But on the outside no one knew who he was. And Lemieux was an absolutely nobody. Slightly better competition with name recognition and I think it could've cracked 200-250k.

Cotto/Canelo: Two fighters that sold a decent amount of PPV's on their own. One fighter had been in with Mayweather. The other had been in with Mayweather and Pac. Mexico vs Puerto Rico. The fight was a success.

Pac/Bradley III: It did exactly what it should've done. Surprised it didn't do less. Nobody wanted to see that trilogy. Pac said this was his last fight so some people bought it as a farewell fight.

Canelo/Khan: I think this one did better than expected. Khan has never been on PPV. Khan has never had monster ratings on HBO/SHO/PBC. He's known in the UK but nobody is traveling for him like Hatton. This did better than Canelo's fight against Lara and Angulo (a fellow Mexican.)

Crawford/Postol: Do I even need to explain this one?

Canelo/Smith: Canelo back to his Lara/Angulo numbers fighting a no name. I think it shows Canelo is good for 300-400k no matter who he fights.

Vargas/Pac: No major cable network support and Top Rank did this on their own. Did what it was expected, maybe a little better actually.

Ward/Kovalev: Fans said for months this should't be a PPV fight because neither guy is known enough. Even thought it was the best two fighters in the game they aren't big enough names for PPV. Hopkins is a bigger name than Ward and he fought Kovalev on HBO. The fight did what it should've done. Maybe a little less.

Ruthless-RKO wrote:GGG/Lemieux: I think the boxing public was surprised this fight sold so poorly. We read about boxing everyday and pay close attention to the sport. Because we're in the boxing bubble it's hard for us to see from the outside in. From the inside GGG was the hottest thing in the sport. But on the outside no one knew who he was. And Lemieux was an absolutely nobody. Slightly better competition with name recognition and I think it could've cracked 200-250k.

Why did that surprise you? GGG hadn’t competed in a PPV before, so we had no numbers to work from. Talent does not always guarantee a good PPV buy-rate.

When boxing was more popular a decade or so ago, Floyd Mayweather Jr. could only generate around 350K PPV buys for the first few events he headlined. And it wasn’t until the De La Hoya fight that he started averaging a million buys.

Enlightened-One wrote:

Ruthless-RKO wrote:GGG/Lemieux: I think the boxing public was surprised this fight sold so poorly. We read about boxing everyday and pay close attention to the sport. Because we're in the boxing bubble it's hard for us to see from the outside in. From the inside GGG was the hottest thing in the sport. But on the outside no one knew who he was. And Lemieux was an absolutely nobody. Slightly better competition with name recognition and I think it could've cracked 200-250k.

Why did that surprise you? GGG hadn’t competed in a PPV before, so we had no numbers to work from. Talent does not always guarantee a good PPV buy-rate.

When boxing was more popular a decade or so ago, Floyd Mayweather Jr. could only generate around 350K PPV buys for the first few events he headlined. And it wasn’t until the De La Hoya fight that he started averaging a million buys.

It didn't surprise me as much, due to it being GGG's first ppv. Just like Ward and Kovalev, when they announced those figures, the GGG figures made more sense.