According to Dan Rafael of espn.com, the June 7 showdown that saw Miguel Cotto win the Middleweight championship did about 350,000 buys which was about 100,000 less than expected.
“The numbers were not great,” said said Top Rank’s Bob Arum, who is rehabilitating in Los Angeles after having knee replacement surgery last week. “All the numbers boxing has been getting on pay-per-view have been terrible. It’s not disappointing; it just is what it is. There are too many (pay-per-view cards).
“Pay-per-view was always designed, as was closed circuit back in the day, for true super fights, not just very good fights. There have been pay-per-views every month and people resent the fact that they’re asked to pay extra for anything halfway decent. Boxing pay-per-view numbers are down. Look at the (recent) numbers for the (Floyd) Mayweather and (Manny) Pacquiao fights. The UFC pay-per-view numbers are also down.”
Said Lou DiBella, Martinez’s promoter, “It’s well off the projections. It underperformed. HBO expected 460,000 to 500,000 and it did well under that.”
“There were so many big events,” DiBella said. “There was a lot of competition for eyeballs and the pay-per-view industry is suffering because people had a lot of other choices that they didn’t have to pay for.”
Arum said that Cotto would likely return in December — again on HBO PPV — at Madison Square Garden.
“We’re thinking about the possibility of making Cotto and (Timothy) Bradley,” Arum said.
“We’re talking but we’d have to work (the weight) out. We haven’t gotten that far yet.”
“It probably makes more sense for us to do a Cotto-Canelo fight next year on the Cinco de Mayo weekend,” Arum said.
Arum said he did not know for sure whether Showtime had options on Alvarez after the Lara fight, but added that if they make the match “I’ve been told it’s not an issue.” He said HBO holds no futures on Cotto but that they would not leave HBO.
