Earlier in September, Canelo Alvarez took a close, and somewhat controversial majority decision during his second meeting with Gennady Golovkin. According to ESPN, the event sold 1.1 million pay-per-views.
The butyrate is slightly lower than the first matchup, which drew 1.3 million buys, but it did eclipse it in pay-per-view revenue with the higher price tag on this rematch.
The event was priced at $84.95, with options to charge higher for HD, meaning the company would’ve created at least $94 million in linear sales. Golden Boy Promotions and HBO declined to release the full figures, but the promotion claims that digital PPV sales were also up by 25% for the rematch.
The live gate generated $23.5 million in Las Vegas, which is good for third highest ever. It fell just short of the original matchup, which drew $27 million, but this Canelo vs GGG rivalry had the two highest gate numbers for an event not involving Floyd Mayweather.
The top two gate records belong to Mayweather/Pacquiao ($72.2M) and Mayweather/McGregor ($55.4M).
To compare, the UFC’s top gate numbers are $17.7M (UFC 205 in New York), UFC 229 (no final figure yet) and $12M (UFC 129 in Canada). The upcoming UFC 229 card with McGregor vs Khabib is already selling past UFC 129’s figures but isn’t going to beat their record in New York.
