After Canelo Alvarez and Gennady Golovkin’s epic slugfest earlier this month, a rematch is all but assured, especially now that the box office and PPV numbers have come in. To say they are good would be an understatement. According to figures from the Athletic Commission of Nevada, Canelo and GGG racked up over $27 million at the gate, ranking them as the third highest gate ever for boxing. The only two bouts that garnered more were, unsurprisingly, Floyd Mayweather’s fights with Manny Pacquiao and Conor McGregor, which tallied over $72 million and over $55 million, respectively.
As far as PPV numbers go, Canelo-GGG did not disappoint. Although it got nowhere near Mayweather and McGregor’s insane 4.4 million domestic buys, Canelo and GGG managed to pull in 1.3 million PPV buys. For Golovkin, it was far and away his most successful fight within that metric; in the two fights prior to his bout with Canelo, the 35-year-old failed to crack 200,000 buys. On the other hand, Canelo is no stranger to big numbers on PPV. His 2013 bout with Mayweather drew 2.2 million buys, while his fight with Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. brought in just over a million earlier this year.
Due to both the quality of the fight and the controversial draw decision, a second fight was always likely, but now, both camps can see that there are historic levels of money waiting for them in a rematch. Already, rumors are flying around the two will face off over Cinco de Mayo weekend in 2018. If the numbers from this fight are any indication, it won’t matter who wins or loses (or draws) in that fight; the real winners will be everyone’s wallets.