LAS VEGAS – Pay-per-view sales from the Tyson Fury-Deontay Wilder rematch weren’t commensurate with the time and money that the promoters and television networks invested in marketing it.
That joint pay-per-view venture between ESPN and FOX Sports produced approximately 850,000 buys in the United States once all the numbers were tabulated. That’d be big business for any other boxing match in an era besieged by piracy, just not for a huge heavyweight event that featured two undefeated fighters.
In a concerted effort to strengthen sales for their third fight Saturday night at T-Mobile Arena, Bob Arum’s Top Rank Inc. and Al Haymon’s Premier Boxing Champions addressed an all-too-common complaint among consumers by combining to invest significantly in the all-heavyweight, pay-per-view portion of the Fury-Wilder undercard ($79.99).
Arum’s company used its one allotted undercard slot to showcase Jared Anderson (9-0, 9 KOs), a promising prospect from Toledo, Ohio, who will box unbeaten Russian veteran Vladimir Tereshkin (22-0-1, 12 KOs) in the 10-round opener of a show set to start at 9 p.m. EDT. The 21-year-old Anderson is listed as a 20-1 favorite, but Tereshkin is undefeated and, on paper, appears to be a step up in competition for one of Fury’s primary sparring partners for his past two fights with Wilder.
Haymon opted to use his one undercard spot on the Robert Helenius-Adam Kownacki rematch. Brooklyn’s Kownacki (20-1, 15 KOs) will attempt to avenge his lone loss when he faces Finland’s Helenius (30-3, 19 KOs), who upset Kownacki by dropping and stopping him in the fourth round of their March 2020 bout at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
The Fury-Wilder co-feature – Efe Ajagba against Frank Sanchez – is the one pay-per-view undercard bout in which one Top Rank figher (Ajagba) will oppose a PBC boxer (Sanchez). Nigeria’s Ajagba (15-0, 12 KOs) and Cuba’s Sanchez (18-0, 13 KOs) both have plenty to lose in that high-stakes 10-rounder.
“The undercard is the best undercard on a pay-per-view event that I’ve ever seen,” Arum told a small group of reporters after the final Fury-Wilder press conference Wednesday at MGM Grand Garden Arena. “The three fights, I mean, we worked hard to put together a good undercard. PBC worked very hard to put together and undercard. Those three heavyweight fights are gems. They are really, really good fights. And the Efe-Frank Sanchez fight, 50-50 fight.
“The Helenius-Kownacki fight, people favored Kownacki in the first fight, Helenius beat him. That’s a terrific fight. Very costly fight, but terrific. It is a terrific undercard. And the undercard even leading up to the pay-per-view is terrific. We got the Olympic gold medalist from Cuba [Robeisy Ramirez], in a really good fight. Berlanga’s on the card. I know Al has some good fights on the card. … So, it’s really, really gonna be a terrific, terrific night of boxing.”
The nine-bout card also will include two fights ESPN2, FS1, ESPN Deportes and FOX Deportes will air, starting at 7 p.m. EDT.
In the opener of that portion of the undercard, Philadelphia’s Julian Williams (27-2-1, 16 KOs, 1 NC), a former IBF/IBO/WBA 154-pound champion, will encounter Denver’s Vladimir Hernandez (12-4, 6 KOs) in a 10-rounder that’ll be contested at a contracted catch weight of 157 pounds. Immediately after Williams-Hernandez, Brooklyn-based knockout artist Edgar Berlanga (17-0, 16 KOs) and Argentina’s Marcelo Coceres (30-2-1, 16 KOs) will square off in a 10-round middleweight match.
Williams-Hernandez is PBC’s fight for that part of the show. Berlanga-Coceres is Top Rank’s bout for that portion of the cable telecast.
Arum credited his company’s improved relationship with Haymon’s company for this enhanced undercard.
“We’re all promoters,” Arum said. “We’re all promoters. To silo off our fighters, to not deal with each other, is idiocy. We have a lot to offer Haymon, Haymon has a lot to offer us, and now, thank God, everybody is seeing it.”
The 89-year-old Arum hopes this undercard helps boost pay-per-view sales Saturday night and leads to better supporting bouts for future events.
A Top Rank fighter will battle a PBC boxer in a main event next on November 20, when Terence Crawford (37-0, 28 KOs) will defend his WBO welterweight title against former IBF/WBC champ Shawn Porter (31-3-1, 17 KOs) at Mandalay Bay’s Michelob ULTRA Arena. Unlike Fury-Wilder III, however, only Arum’s Top Rank is on the hook financially for that pay-per-view endeavor.
“I’m sure this is gonna lead to us working together,” Arum said, “like we do with other promoters, and we’ll cooperate with them and they’ll cooperate with us.”
The undercard for Fury-Wilder II was weaker than for their third bout. It included former WBO junior featherweight champ Emanuel Navarrete’s 11th-round stoppage of Jeo Santisima, former IBF heavyweight champ Charles Martin’s sixth-round technical knockout of Gerald Washington and Petros Ananyan’s 10-round, unanimous-decision upset of previously unbeaten junior welterweight contender Subriel Matias.
Top Rank and PBC agreed to make more compelling, competitive fights for the pay-per-view portion of this show.
“I think Todd [duBoef], who’s the president of Top Rank, and Bruce Binkow, got together and they formulated that plan,” Arum said. “No junk undercards. Really good undercard. And I was shocked when [PBC] put Kownacki and Helenius [on the undercard]. That’s a very expensive fight and they’re paying for it.”
Thoughts?
