In what industry sources point out as sharply diminished interest from mainstream/crossover sports fans, last Saturday’s Canelo Alvarez-Liam Smith fight in Texas isn’t expected to surpass 300,000 pay-per-view buys. While the attendance was more than 51,000, the $64.95 pay-per-view price and disappointment over Alvarez not fighting unbeaten middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin triggered a mass defection. Yet, industry sources claim with satellite figures in and early cable companies reporting, the Alvarez-Smith fight should finish with between 250,000 and 300,000 buys. “The idiocy of [Alvarez] calling out Golovkin and fighting someone nobody’s heard of … they put themselves in this position. In England, where Golovkin’s Sept. 10 fifth-round technical knockout of welterweight champion Kell Brook sold out O2 Arena in London, there were 500,000 pay-per-view buys.

Source: Los Angeles Times September 22, 2016 20:03 UTC