Canelo Alvarez continues his highly successful run of headlining pay-per-views after reports surface of the buyrate for his rematch against Gennady Golovkin.
Reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN indicate that the U.S. buyrate for Alvarez’s September 15 victory over Golovkin was around 1.1 million. The number is lower than the reported 1.3 million buys the first fight between the two last year.
Despite the reports, Golden Boy Promotions, the company that spearheaded the promotion for this fight, released a statement rejecting the reports and called the sequel to the 2017 middleweight superfight more successful than its predecessor with online pay-per-view sales being at least 25 percent more than the first fight.
"We will not be releasing overall figures for the fight, but between a terrific gate, a very successful linear (television) pay-per-view buy rate and an explosion in digital pay-per-view sales, Canelo-Golovkin II was a more successful event than its predecessor," the statement reads.
Despite what Golden Boy stated, there is one aspect that the first fight still beat the second fight in: the live gate. The Nevada State Athletic Commission stated that the rematch generated $23,473,500 from 16,732 tickets with 1,451 complimentary tickets being given away. That live gate figure is lower than last year’s fight, which was $27,059,850.
If the buyrate number is in fact at least one million, then it would be the third consecutive pay-per-view Alvarez has headlined that broke at least seven figures. Before the two fights against Golovkin, Alvarez headlined a May 2017 pay-per-view against Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., a fight that saw Alvarez win by unanimous decision.
Alvarez defeated Golovkin in the main event by majority decision to capture the WBA “super,” WBC and Ring Magazine middleweight titles. The first fight between the two boxers ended in a split draw.
