I thought boxing was meant to be a dying sport ?

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When Top Rank and Golden Boy (and their "strategic partners," HBO and Showtime, respectively) decided to go head-to-head with their big Mexican Independence Day weekend cards a mile apart in Las Vegas on Saturday night, few fans or media were happy about it.

But now the official gate numbers have been released by the Nevada State Athletic Commission, and neither show appeared to suffer. In fact, they both seemed to thrive.

Top Rank’s HBO PPV card at the Thomas & Mack Center, headlined by the Sergio Martinez-Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. middleweight championship fight -- which produced one of the most dramatic endings in boxing history -- produced a gate of $3,052,475 from a sellout crowd of 16,939. There were 751 complimentary tickets given away.

For the record, here's the reason for the discrepancy between the 16,939 official tickets sold and the arena-record sellout figure of 19,186 announced early during fight week by Top Rank and the Thomas & Mack Center: The 19,186 figure includes even those credentialed to be in the building without a ticket -- media members, television production folks, commission officials, hot dog vendors, etc. -- according to Top Rank's Todd duBoef and the commission.

Down the street at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, where Saul "Canelo" Alvarez retained his junior middleweight belt against Josesito Lopez in the main event of the Showtime card, the figures were also strong despite doubts that the sellout was legitimate. Why the doubts? Because even hours after Golden Boy announced it, blocks of seats in most price levels could still be purchased on Ticketmaster's website.

Funny business or not, the crowd looked good on television and the official figures were also strong. The commission reported that the MGM Grand card generated a gate of $1,618,150 from 12,860 tickets sold (a sellout), with 1,659 freebies.

That means that on the same night in two arenas that are walking distance from each other, there were about 30,000 people watching two big-time boxing cards.

Dying sport, right?

The downside to this success, of course, is that it probably emboldens Top Rank and Golden Boy, locked in a petty war for years, to go head-to-head again.

Will anyone be surprised to see a similar situation arise on May 4, 2013, Cinco de Mayo weekend?

http://espn.go.com/blog/dan-rafael/post/_/id/1916/competing-cards-thrive-at-gate

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Dan Rafael
@shosports announced it drew 1.04M viewers to Canelo-Lopez, net's 2nd-best #boxing rating since 2007.

Boxing is starting to heat up over the past year.

You know how crazy casual viewers can be and the stupid shit they say. Same morons that thought Brock Lesnar was the best HW in the World lol

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Kevin Iole ‏@KevinI
This is a stunner to me and I'll believe it when I see it, but hearing the PPV numbers for Chavez-Martinez could go past, gulp, 500K

Chris Mannix ‏@ChrisMannixSI
From what I hear from people tracking ppv numbers for #ChavezMartinez, it could fall between 400,000 and 500,000. That's a huge success.

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According to Ratings Mexico, Alvarez, who faced Josesito Lopez in defense of his WBC junior middleweight title, had a little over 18.1 million viewers tuned in, translating to a 15.1 rating with a 36.6 share for Televisa

Meanwhile, Chavez Jr., defending his WBC middleweight belt against Sergio Martinez, had about 16.2 million Mexicans watching his fight, registering a 13.5 rating and 34.2 share for TV Azteca.

All together, the numbers mean that about 34.3 million Mexicans watched boxing on the evening of September 15th with an astounding 70.8% of all television viewers in Mexico during that time slot tuned into one of the two bouts. To make the numbers even more amazing, both fights took place during traditional Mexican Independence Day festivities, at a time when large outdoor celebrations are commonplace all over the nation.

http://theboxingtribune.com/2012/09/canelo-beats-chavez-jr-in-mexican-tv-ratings-war-fights-generate-astounding-numbers/

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Middleweight champion Sergio Martinez's unanimous decision victory last Saturday night against titleholder Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., which featured one of the most dramatic endings in boxing history, generated 475,000 pay-per-view buys, HBO reported Friday.

The pay-per-view total, consisting of 250,000 buys from satellite services and 225,000 buys from cable and telco systems, generated nearly $25 million in domestic television revenue for the fight held at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas.

HBO PPV chief Mark Taffet said the numbers, as usual, are expected to rise once they are fully reported.

"It's an extremely solid number," Taffet said. "I expect the figures to go up as we collect more of them."

The figure is particularly strong considering it was the first time Martinez ever has been on pay-per-view and it was the first time Chavez has headlined a major pay-per-view card.

"It significantly exceeded our original expectations of 250,000 buys," Taffet said. "Fight fans had been talking about and looking forward to Chavez-Martinez for a year. The pay-per-view performance simply reflects that the fans got the fight they wanted."

Taffet estimated that more than 2 million people watched the fight.

"Pay-per-view fights typically have an average of five or more viewers per household," he said. "Based on the group viewing phenomenon of pay-per-view, it's likely well over 2 million people watched the fight."

What they saw was an action fight but one Martinez dominated -- until the final round.

That is when Chavez (46-1-1, 32 KOs) -- who tested positive for marijuana after the fight and faces a suspension from the Nevada State Athletic Commission -- rocked Martinez and knocked him down hard with 90 seconds left in the 12th round, sending the largely pro-Chavez sold-out crowd into a frenzy.

Martinez (50-2-2, 28 KOs) regrouped and, with blood streaming down his face, fought Chavez toe-to-toe until the final bell.

Martinez won a unanimous decision on scores of 118-109, 118-109 and 117-110. He fractured his left hand in the fourth round and suffered a minor tear in his right knee on the knockdown and is scheduled for surgery next week.

The fight will be replayed on Saturday night (HBO, 9:30 p.m. ET/PT) and will be followed by a new edition of "The Fight Game with Jim Lampley," blow-by-blow man Lampley's studio show on which the fallout from the fight will be discussed.

http://espn.go.com/boxing/story/_/id/8408463/sergio-martinez-julio-cesar-chavez-jr-extremely-solid-ppv-buys-hbo-says

ricky burns v kevin mitchell tonight.

i've been looking forward to this for ages.

cheekynffc wrote:

ricky burns v kevin mitchell tonight.

i've been looking forward to this for ages.

Same here should be good fun.

Ali wrote:

cheekynffc wrote:

ricky burns v kevin mitchell tonight.

i've been looking forward to this for ages.

Same here should be good fun.

mitchell v murray was fight of the year 2011 for me.

i've genuinely got no idea who's going to win this one. i think burns is a very underrated boxer but i also think mitchell is potentially world class and that the performance against katsidis was an aberration.

cheekynffc wrote:

Ali wrote:

cheekynffc wrote:

ricky burns v kevin mitchell tonight.

i've been looking forward to this for ages.

Same here should be good fun.

mitchell v murray was fight of the year 2011 for me.

i've genuinely got no idea who's going to win this one. i think burns is a very underrated boxer but i also think mitchell is potentially world class and that the performance against katsidis was an aberration.

I wouldn't say Mitchell is world class but he's got more than enough power to trouble Burns.

The Katsidis fight for me was just a difference in class, sure Michael isn't exactly a world class boxer but that man was able to Marquez on his arse and knock Casamayor out of the ring.

How did Warren manage to get Buffer to come to Glasgow

Sucks that this is on at the exact same time as Frampton vs. Molitor.

Ali wrote:

cheekynffc wrote:

Ali wrote:

cheekynffc wrote:

ricky burns v kevin mitchell tonight.

i've been looking forward to this for ages.

Same here should be good fun.

mitchell v murray was fight of the year 2011 for me.

i've genuinely got no idea who's going to win this one. i think burns is a very underrated boxer but i also think mitchell is potentially world class and that the performance against katsidis was an aberration.

I wouldn't say Mitchell is world class but he's got more than enough power to trouble Burns.

The Katsidis fight for me was just a difference in class, sure Michael isn't exactly a world class boxer but that man was able to Marquez on his arse and knock Casamayor out of the ring.

mitchell hasn't proved himself world class but i think he has that sort of ability. he prepared like a clown for the katsidis fight and paid the price for it.

i lean towards mitchell because he's a very talented fighter. but saying that, burns is extremely efficient. can't fucking wait for this one

Hey Cheeky have you noticed that Ricky says "Erm" like every five seconds when he's speaking ?

neither of them are particularly articulate to be fair.

Fucking hell Burn's has developed into a beast.

maybe the katsidis fight wasn't an aberration hahaha.

not sure that stoppage wasn't a tad premature though.

Frampton just stopped Molitor in a dominating performance.