The Canelo Alvarez-Gennady Golovkin middleweight title fight produced 1.3 million pay-per-view buys, the best showing between two world champion boxers since Floyd Mayweather’s record-setting 2015 triumph over Manny Pacquiao. Mayweather threatened his own record 4.6 million buys with Pacquiao on Aug. 26, when he defeated UFC champion Conor McGregor by 10th-round technical knockout in a fight that Showtime announced as exceeding 4 million buys. On Sept. 16 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, three-belt middleweight champion Golovkin retained his belts, but saw his perfect record blemished by a draw with Mexico’s popular Alvarez, a former two-division champion. While Golovkin, 35, didn’t exceed 200,000 buys in either of his two prior pay-per-views, Alvarez’s loss to Mayweather in 2013 surpassed 2 million buys. Alvarez generated 1 million buys in May while defeating Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. by unanimous decision, and had 900,000 buys in his November 2015 triumph over four-division champion Miguel Cotto.

Source: Los Angeles Times September 27, 2017 21:24 UTC