Notebook: Mayweather-Paul pay-per-view expected to hit at least 1 million buys
Munguia gets new foe; AJ-Usyk update; Shields MMA debut
Floyd Mayweather’s nickname is “Money,” and he sure still knows how to make it.
Mayweather’s hugely hyped eight-round exhibition bout with novice cruiserweight and YouTube personality Logan Paul did approximately 1 million pay-per-view buys in the United States, a Showtime source told Fight Freaks Unite on Wednesday.
Showtime PPV handled the event, which took place on Sunday night at rainy Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida, where Mayweather took part in his second exhibition since retiring in August 2017.
Five-division world champion and former pound-for-pound king Mayweather (50-0, 27 KOs), 44, and the much bigger Paul (0-1), 26, who had a six-inch height advantage and outweighed Mayweather by 35 pounds at the weight-in — and probably even more on fight night — danced and clinched for eight rounds in a bout for which there was no official scoring and very little action.
But it was a curiosity that drew a big pay-per-view audience for a fight that did not count for anything. Still, the $49.99 pay-per-view grossed around $50 million in domestic pay-per-view revenue.
According to the source, the roughly 1 million or so buys came from traditional cable and satellite television pay-per-view as well as digital purchases, including on the Fanmio app, which was a partner on the event.
The result was yet another big-selling event for Mayweather, who has taken part in numerous pay-per-views that have eclipsed 1 million subscriptions, including the all-time record of 4.6 million (and more than $400 million in revenue) for his long-awaited showdown with Manny Pacquiao for pound-for-pound supremacy in 2015. Two years later, Mayweather’s final official fight against UFC star Conor McGregor did 4.3 million pay-per-view buys.
Mayweather was guaranteed $10 million but could make $35 million or more given the robust sales while Paul, whose guarantee was reportedly $250,000, should earn at least $5 million.
After the fight Mayweather, who did not look particularly good, said he probably is through boxing be it in a real comeback fight or exhibitions.
“I am not going to perform like I was 19,” he said. “It’s all about growth and aging. I can’t fight like when I fought people like (Arturo) Gatti and people like that. It’s sad Pacquiao is coming out to fight again. Will I make a comeback? Absolutely not. I have retired from the sport of boxing. I probably won't do an exhibition again either.
“You’ve got to realize I’ve been in this sport 25 years. I understand I’m not 21, I’m not 25, but I had fun tonight.”
Showtime will replay the bout on Saturday at 10:05 p.m. ET/PT.
New Munguia foe set
Middleweight contender Jaime Munguia (36-0, 29 KOs), 24, of Mexico, has a new opponent for his main event of Golden Boy’s June 19 DAZN card at the Don Haskins Center on the campus of the University of Texas at El Paso.
Last week, Poland’s Maciej Sulecki, a former world title challenger, pulled out of the fight for reasons that were not made clear, so Golden Boy got to work on securing a replacement, which it has in another Polish fighter, Kamil Szeremeta (21-1, 5 KOs), 31.
Although he has not been formally announced yet as Munguia’s foe, he was approved as the opponent by DAZN on Wednesday, a source with knowledge of the process told Fight Freaks Unite.
Szeremeta’s lone loss came in his most recent fight. It was a one-sided seventh-round thrashing at the hands of world titleholder Gennadiy Golovkin on Dec. 18 in Hollywood, Florida. GGG knocked him down four times.
It is the second time Sulecki has withdraw from a fight with former junior middleweight world titlist Munguia. They were scheduled to meet April 23, but Sulecki (29-2, 11 KOs) pulled out due to a back injury and was replaced by D’Mitrius Ballard. Then Ballard suffered an elbow injury and also pulled out. That forced the card to be postponed and it was rescheduled for June 19 with Sulecki, whose back had healed, back in the main event until he withdrew again.
Golden Boy did hold talks with Gabriel Rosado about potentially facing Munguia, but he is already scheduled to fight Bektemir “Bully” Melikuziev in the 12-round super middleweight co-feature on June 19, so Szeremeta got the nod.
Ritson-Ponce 140 eliminator
Junior welterweights Lewis Ritson (21-1, 12 KOs), 27, and Jeremias Ponce (27-0, 17 KOs), 24, of Argentina, will meet in an IBF final eliminator on Saturday at the Vertu Motors Arena in Ritson’s hometown of Newcastle, England.
The card will stream on DAZN in the United States beginning at 2 p.m. and will be the final Matchroom Boxing card on Sky Sports as its exclusive deal expires and promoter Eddie Hearn has made a deal to move all of his events to DAZN in the U.K. and Ireland beginning next month.
The Ritson-Ponce winner will become one of undisputed champion Josh Taylor’s mandatory challengers.
There will be about 1,000 fans allowed at the fight as the U.K. begins to open up again amid the coronavirus pandemic. Ritson is coming off a disputed split decision win against former lightweight titlist Miguel Vazquez in October and vowed to be better this time out.
“I haven’t really watched it back but a couple of days later I went to my dad’s house and asked him if he’d watched the fight,” Ritson said. “He said yes, and I asked him to be truthful about what he thought of it. He was honest and said we got very lucky and we got gifted a decision, but that it is up to me whether to dwell on it or improve on it.
“That’s what we’ve done, we’ve gone away and made a few changes in camp. It was just a clash of styles. I think I was probably Vazquez’ best performance in a few years and it was one of my worst to be fair. You live and you learn. There was maybe a few things that we could have done differently in that fight. We know that now and we’ve got the experience in the bank.”
Ritson parted ways with trainer Neill Fannan and will be trained by his father, Dave.
“I’m back with my old man,” Ritson said. “I had a little bit of thinking to do after my last fight. I half hinted that I wanted to come home, and my dad half hinted that he wanted to be back training me. It was the right move for me and we’ve been flying in camp. A happy fighter is a dangerous fighter, it’s probably the first time in a while that I’ve been quite happy.”
Joshua-Usyk update
The heavy lifting to making a deal for the fight between unified heavyweight world titlist Anthony Joshua and mandatory challenger Oleksandr Usyk is done, although the fight is still not yet signed. However, the fight is slated to take place in September at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London.
I spoke to Usyk promoter Alex Krassyuk about the progress toward finalizing the deal and wrote about it for World Boxing News. Please read that story here: https://www.worldboxingnews.net/2021/06/09/anthony-joshua-oleksandr-usyk-closer/
Shields set for MMA debut
Claressa Shields has already made a big impact in her 4½ years and 11 fights into her professional career. The two-time U.S. Olympic gold medalist is the undisputed women’s junior middleweight world champion and has been the undisputed middleweight champion and a unified super middleweight world titlist.
Now, she is set for her MMA debut with a goal to win a world title and become the first fighter — male or female — to simultaneously hold titles in MMA and boxing. She signed with the Professional Fighters League and will face Brazilian jiu-jitsu specialist Brittney Elkin in the lightweight (155 pounds) main event of the PFL card Thursday (ESPN2, 10 p.m. ET) inside the bubble of the Ocean Casino Resort in Atlantic City, New Jersey. I wrote about Shields’ quest to become a two-sport star for The Ring magazine website. Please read that story here: https://www.ringtv.com/622842-claressa-shields-future-boxing-hall-of-famer-braced-for-mma-debut-against-brittney-elkin/
Quick hits
Although the proposed exhibition between retired four-division champions Miguel Cotto and Juan Manuel Marquez did not come off on June 12 in Miami as was being planned, there are still plans to make it a reality. Bryan Perez of Cotto Promotions told Fight Freaks Unite they “are still working on details to make it happen. It’s in the works.” Puerto Rico’s Cotto and Mexico’s Marquez both won world titles at junior welterweight and faced Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather, but never each other in what would have been a classic addition to the famed Puerto Rico vs. Mexico boxing rivalry. Hall of Famer Marquez (56-7-1, 40 KOs), 47, last fought in May 2014. Cotto (41-6, 33 KOs), 40, a probable Hall of Famer, retired after an upset decision loss to Sadam Ali cost him a junior middleweight title in 2017.
Junior lightweight contender O’Shaquie Foster (18-2, 11 KOs), 27, who applied to the United States federal court for the Southern District of New York for a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction hoping to resume his career while the lawsuit filed against him by promoter Lou DiBella for breach of contract is pending, had those applications rejected by the court on Wednesday. Last month, DiBella sued Foster for breach of contract and asked the court to uphold the validity of his promotional contract and for “in excess of” $500,000 in damages.
Unified bantamweight world champion and pound-for-pound star Naoya “Monster” Inoue (20-0, 17 KOs) left Japan on Wednesday for this trip to Las Vegas, where he will make his fifth title defense, a mandatory, against southpaw Michael Dasmarinas (30-2-1, 20 KOs), of the Philippines, on June 19 (ESPN, ESPN Deportes, ESPN+, 10 p.m. ET) at the Virgin Hotels Las Vegas. “I’m in perfect condition, and hope to show my best performance to the world,” Inoue said upon leaving.
Light heavyweight rivals Lyndon Arthur and Anthony Yarde will see action in separate fights on July 10 at the Royal Albert Hall in London ahead of a rematch later in the year, promoter Frank Warren announced. Arthur (18-0, 12 KOs), 29, narrowly outpointed British countryman and former world title challenger Yarde (20-2, 19 KOs), 29, on Dec. 5. In the 10-round interim bouts, Arthur will fight Italy’s Davide Faraci (15-0, 7 KOs) and Yarde will face Germany’s Emin Atra (17-0, 12 KOs).
Junior lightweight contender Lamont Roach Jr. (20-1-1, 8 KOs), 25, of Washington, D.C., will face Daniel Rosas (22-4-1, 14 KOs), 31, of Mexico, in a 10-rounder slated for the undercard of Golden Boy’s card on July 9 (DAZN) headlined by the Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez-Sullivan Barrera light heavyweight fight. Roach suffered his only loss as the mandatory challenger for junior lightweight world titlist Jamel Herring, dropping a competitive decision in November 2019. Roach has won his only fight since, a third-round knockout of Neil John Tabano in October. Rosas has won two fights in a row.
Show and tell
After the great Bernard Hopkins lost the undisputed middleweight title via close decision to Jermain Taylor and then lost to him again in another extremely close fight in an immediate rematch, he did what a lot of fighters do after a loss. He decided to move up in weight. But instead of going up to super middleweight, Hopkins skipped over that division and went up to light heavyweight like old-school fighters did decades ago when there was no such thing as a 168-pound weight class.
And Hopkins didn’t just move up for any old fight. He moved up to challenge the lineal 175-pound king Antonio Tarver, who was coming off his third fight and second win over Roy Jones Jr. Tarver was a 3-1 favorite, but Hopkins authored a masterful performance in the main event of an HBO PPV that I covered at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Hopkins scored a fifth-round knockdown, closed Tarver’s right eye and won 118-109 across the board. The fight, one of Hopkins’ most impressive performances in a career filled with them, was on June 10, 2006 — 15 years ago on Thursday. Here is one of the two different site posters produced for the fight in my collection.
Mayweather-Paul Photo: Amanda Westcott/Showtime; Szeremeta photo: Tom Hogan/GGG Promotions; Ritson photo: Matchroom Boxing; Shields photo: PFL
Nothing lasts forever. If there is a market for silly fights, so be it. There are true BOXING FANS, and there are people who want to watch crappy junk. The true boxing fan does not go to watch amateur fights. We wish and want the best. That is why MMA are poor fights because they mostly throw crappy kicks and there hands are crap. And although there wrestling is good, they are not good at boxing or kicking. Hence the virtually pad less gloves. If any of those champs fought any boxing champs in there respective divisions, they would be seriously hurt. So I am a true boxing fan that waits for prime battles, and let's the circus go by.
A freak show, i pay to watch boxing not a circus performance.