Showtime Sports has confirmed that last Saturday’s Floyd Mayweather-Canelo Alvarez event, nicknamed “The One,” has become the highest grossing boxing pay-per-view in history at $150 million.
The previous record was held by 2007’s Mayweather-De La Hoya pay-per-view, which grossed $136 million.
The pay-per-view buy record is also held by Mayweather-De La Hoya at 2.4 million buys. At press time, distributors are estimating that the Mayweather-Canelo event will finish with 2.2 million. However, it’s possible that there could be a final surge which pushes “The One” into the #1 — Mayweather-De La Hoya had a similar last-minute surge after initial estimates came back at 2.15 million.
If the numbers do hold firm, Mayweather-Canelo will sit firmly in the #2 spot in pay-per-view buys, surpassing Tyson-Holyfield II (1.97 million). In addition, “The One” has set a new live gate record at $20 million.
The co-main events of Lucas Matthysse vs. Danny Garcia, and Mayweather vs. Canelo, will be replayed tomorrow night (September 21) on Showtime at 9 p.m., including never before seen All Access footage from fight night.
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Not bad for a sport that’s been “dying” since the beginning of the 20th century. A lot of you will recall that after Mayweather-De La Hoya, the media was claiming that fight was going to be the death of boxing because it wasn’t “exciting” enough. Yet here we are again with Mayweather setting another pay-per-view record. Here’s the bottom line that always gets overlooked — there is nothing in sports like a big boxing match atmosphere.
Beats, Boxing and Mayhem 