The CEO of Golden Boy Promotions, Oscar De La Hoya, has confirmed that the September 17th HBO boxing card featuring Saul "Canelo" Alvarez's impressive 9th round TKO of Liam "Beefy" Smith gathered almost 300,000 PPV buys, which was a huge success in his eyes.
The fight took place at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, TX on Mexican Independence Day, which hosted almost 52,000 fans in attendance to set the record for tickets sold at the stadium. Alvarez dominated Smith throughout the exciting fight, ending the scuffle with a brutal body shot in the 9th round that incapacitated Smith, relinquishing him of his WBO junior middleweight title. While it is one of the lowest purchase totals of Canelo's recent fights, De La Hoya is quite happy that he was able to pack such a large number of spectators into AT&T Stadium and a wide viewership throughout the HBO telecast.
"We're very happy, extremely happy with the numbers," De La Hoya exclaimed recently when updating the press on how well the event turned out. "Obviously, nobody had ever heard of Liam Smith, and when you try to sell a PPV event with somebody that nobody has ever heard of, you have a tough job ahead of you."
These are certainly numbers Oscar should be very happy with, as there are very few remaining boxers who can garner 300,000 buys on a pay-per-view platform, especially with Canelo being able to accomplish the task easily against an opponent with absolutely zero name recognition. While the risk is ran that fights such as these will lead to more top-tier combatants taking on softer competition, Alvarez has been in his fair share of wars, and was using this fight simply to prepare for a showdown with middleweight juggernaut Gennady Golovkin next fall.
Unfortunately, Canelo injured his right hand in this fight and will be out of action until at least early 2017. The injury will not require surgery, however the resting period have most assuming he will not return until Cinco De Mayo weekend in May of 2017, at which point he will move up to the full 160 pound middleweight limit to get ready for his mega-fight with Golovkin.
