Boss Showtime Sports Steven Espinosa honestly admitted that he does not believe in a duel between two popular American punchers Gervonta Davis (26-0, 24 KOs) and Ryan Garcia (23-0, 19 KOs).
The problem is that both perform on competing platforms: Davis on TV Showtime PPVand Garcia on
streaming DAZN.
Espinosa can’t seehow to solve this problem: “My personal opinion is that in this case there is no point in joint PPV. I think the fans do not understand how difficult and thankless the process is. As they do not understand that all the details just take an unrealistically long time. I’m not even talking about the fact that you have to spend a lot of money on marketing and all that.
Earlier in the history of boxing, there were very few cases when fights were held simultaneously on two paid platforms. Espinosa recalls: “Remember the organization of the fight between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao? If you only knew how difficult it really was. So difficult that tickets went on sale only a week before the event. And all why? Because the parties were different inandpromotion day. I’m not saying the same thing would have happened between us and DAZN. I’m talking about what we’ve only done twice in the history of boxing: Mayweather vs Pacquiao and Lennox Lewis vs Mike Tyson. With all due respect to Ryan and Gervonta, but their face-to-face fight is much inferior to these events in terms of scale.
Espinosa believes that “all this can be done differently. I don’t understand why everyone is fixated on joint PPV. Okay, maybe for DAZN that’s okay, they’re just on their way to becoming an important part of television in the US. As of today, they are uncompetitive. There are many ways how to solve the problem. Let’s take the situation with Vasily Lomachenko and Top Rank – they previously allowed him to fight one fight on DAZN, take the belt and go back to them. I suppose that if DAZN really believe in Ryan, they might as well let him go to showtime behind Davis’s belt with the fact that he will then return back, and everyone will live happily ever after. But as far as I’ve heard, DAZN they won’t go for it – they demand a joint PPV. ”
Boss Showtime Sports nevertheless stated that “if the parties agree among themselves on a joint PPV, then, of course, he will not turn on the back one. But if suddenly they want to hear my opinion, then I will explain why you should not do this. How much PPV can this fight collect? Listen, this is a good question. You know, in this business there is always a risk that cannot be calculated. Sometimes you get more than what you planned. And sometimes you do not reach the expected results. Even the fight between Mayweather and Conor McGregor as a whole brought less than expected.
Espinoza still had to voice the estimated figures: “Let’s turn to history. Let’s drop the highest marks, including Mayweather’s fight against Logan Paul. So we have 800k for Canelo Alvarez and 750k for the rematch between Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder. Can Garcia And Davis Compete With Canelo? It is very difficult, because Saul has been at the top for a long time. I suppose that the real numbers would be less – somewhere in the range of 400-500 thousand PPV. Maybe a little more. Let’s not forget that both have big fan armies. And in fact, it’s one of the biggest fights you can do right now.”
It’s funny that yesterday Garcia invited Mayweather and McGregor to fight him as an opening act. He believes that titles “don’t mean shit”. WBC boss Mauricio Suleiman was offended, and WBA president Gilberto Mendoza reacted strangely to these words.
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