Mayweather-Cotto Generates $1.5 Million PPV Buys

1.5 million fans tuned in last weekend to witness Floyd Mayweather’s unanimous decision victory over Miguel Cotto, HBO confirmed.

The pay-per-view card, which retailed for $59.95, cleared $94 million in revenue.

The $1.5 million sets a record as the second-highest grossing non-heavyweight title fight behind 2007’s Mayweather’s fight with Oscar De La Hoya. Mayweather has fought three times in the last five years on the Mexican holiday weekend of Cinco de Mayo and cleared over one million pay-per-view buys each time against De La Hoya, Shane Mosley and Miguel Cotto.

This year’s undercard was supported by rising Mexican star Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, who made a successful defense of his WBC junior middleweight title against Shane Mosley.

HBO will replay Mayweather vs. Cotto and Alvarez vs. Mosley tomorrow night (May 12) at 10:15 p.m. ET.

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Cotto-Margarito II aside, Mayweather-Cotto was one of the sparingly few times that there was no controversy or letdown in a boxing pay-per-view main event. No freak shoulder accidents like Dawson-Hopkins I. No cries of sucker punches like Mayweather-Ortiz. No anger from a robbery like Pacquiao-Marquez III or Rios-Abril. This night, 1.5 million people got their money’s worth from a boxing event (!). And even though boxing followed that up with the mess that is Lamont Peterson’s situation, there’s still optimism in the air about the sport from casual fans that we can only hope continues with Manny Pacquiao vs. Timothy Bradley on June 9.