By Jim Calfa: Eddie Hearn insists that last weekend’s trilogy fight between Canelo Alvarez and Gennadiy Golovkin was a success in terms of pay-per-view buys despite reports of disappointing numbers.
Dan Rafael reported that his sources told him that the Canelo-Golovkin III fight generated between 550,000 and 575,000 buys. However, DAZN reported that the fight drew 1.06 million buys, which were global numbers.
Hearn feels that people with an agenda were behind the less than spectacular pay-per-view buy reports for Canelo vs. Golovkin III.
“There are a lot of people in the industry with agendas. Maybe I have an agenda when I’m doing something. It’s that kind of business,” Eddie Hearn told Matchroom Boxing.
“I have not returned to see. I don’t need to watch it again,” Hearn said of the Canelo vs. Golovkin III. “The fight was a good fight. It wasn’t as good as the first two fights.
“GGG definitely started off slow, and then when he got back into the fight later, was it because Canelo had already won the fight, really? He couldn’t believe he was 115-113. I struggled to give GGG more than two or three rounds.
“When you look back, maybe he won the first round, for example. Actually, not much happened in that round. I think it was a good fight, but it wasn’t as good as the first two fights.
“I thought Canelo boxed very well for the first seven or eight rounds. His movement was outstanding, and I think GGG was a bit slow to shoot.
“Whether it’s the changing style he’s had over the years, different coaches and things like that. He is fighting differently now. I think he might kick himself a little bit because he finished well.
“It’s a wrist injury,” Hearn said of Canelo’s left wrist. “This has been a problem for him since the fight with Caleb Plant. Going into the Dmitry Bivol fight, going into the Gennadiy Golovkin fight.
“Wrestlers often mask the injury. They’ll outgrow it, or freeze it, treat it. He’s been doing that, and I think he’s gotten to a point where he can’t do it anymore. So the wrist will have to be operated on the ligaments or tendons. Then he will be back.
“People talk about September. I don’t see that. I think he’ll be back in May. Yesterday I spoke with him. He had been playing golf, which he hasn’t really been doing much at this camp. He feels good to be back with a win.
“Saul is always going to go wherever the fights he wants,” Hearn said when asked which direction Canelo will go for his next fight. “His main focus of him at the moment is Dmitry Bivol. Bivol has to beat Ramírez.
“We have a great relationship, not only with Saul but also with Eddy Reynoso. That was the fifth Canelo fight we’ve done. That’s pretty amazing. I look back in history.
“We did Callum Smith, we did Yildirim, we did Billy Joe Saunders, we did Bivol and we did Gennadiy Golovkin. That is an amazing race. It is a pleasure to work with him; really is. You learn a lot about life and boxing being around these people. You also learn about the simplicity of the equipment.
“Sometimes when you work with wrestlers you see too many people, too much communication, too much noise, too much information. It’s really refreshing to see Saul and Eddy Reynoso. That partnership is key for any fighter.
“He is a student and a teacher, and that is how it works with them. Simplicity is beautiful.
“Sometimes, you have to put yourself out there in life. So when you’re sitting at home and you see these muppets getting false information, lying or having an agenda, you want to pick yourself up a little bit, fight back a little bit.
“A lot of it was in jest. After [Leonard] Ellerbe showed up, and I had to put him back in his box and say, ‘Not tonight, Leonard.’ I will not let anyone speak ill of me when he thinks he is wrong. It is a public platform.
“There are a lot of talking points like pay-per-view numbers for GGG. DAZN came out and issued a statement about it. Over a million pay-per-view purchases worldwide. What bothered me is that after the fight, the hardcore fans are obsessed with purse deals and pay-per-view buys.
“We are all hardcore fans. We want to know how our show performed. No one really publishes those numbers. Once you start doing that, people expect it all the time. Dan Rafael received numbers from people with an agenda who wanted him [Canelo vs. Golovkin III] fail
“Those numbers were very wrong. The problem is when you work for a big outlet. I had this conversation with Mike Coppinger the other day. You can’t report pay-per-view numbers based on me, Stephen Espinoza, or Leonard Ellerbe telling you a number they heard because they are credible outlets.
“Dan Rafael right now doesn’t have a great start, so he can say what he wants. So he puntd to give you a number, but the number was well out. Then when DAZN came back and said it made over a million pay-per-view purchases. He came back and said, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, well that was in the US.’
“No no no. Don’t be ridiculous. A huge proportion of that was in the US because, don’t forget, this was a dark start time of four in the morning in Europe, Australia and key markets.
“You’re talking about tens of thousands of purchases in these smaller markets, and the event wasn’t available on pay-per-view on DAZN in the larger markets. Mexico, Latin America.
“So Dan was very wrong. He couldn’t take it on himself. Then he started saying, ‘Well, did the pay-per-view cover the main event purses?’ What the fuck does that have to do with you? Absolutely nothing at all. We pay the bills. DAZN pays the bills
“By the way, what about the door? He says, ‘The entry was $24 million.’ The gate was $22 million for this one. By the way, that’s publicly reported information. People are obsessed with how the fighters were paid and how the match worked.
“I think overall the numbers were solid. I think they were probably a bit below DAZN’s expectations in the US. Still, it’s nowhere near the number reported by Dan Rafael, and that’s annoying and upsetting that you take someone with an agenda at their word. So we had to fix it, and DAZN did.
“On one hand, people say, ‘DAZN doesn’t have a lot of subscribers globally.’ So Dan Rafael says that he made 450,000 purchases worldwide. I thought we had no subscribers. Now, all of a sudden, people are buying pay-per-views on DAZN globally.
“Really, none of that matters in the slightest, but in the passionate world of fight fans, sometimes you have to let people know. I think the fight was a success. It was certainly at the door. I think the pay-per-view numbers globally were too.
“Last night with Leonard was good. He said that he wanted to do the ‘sunless song’. I told him he’s wearing Floyd Mayweather’s jockstrap. He told me that if he ever needed him to put on a big event, let him know.
“I said I could have gotten some coffee from Starbucks. Leonard Ellerbe will say: ‘Eddie Hearn is a joke’. Look at the resume, look at the photos. Go to my Instagram and watch Madison Square Garden sold out, T-Mobile sold out, Saudi Arabia sold out and Brisbane sold out.
“We are a big global business, and Leonard was good last night. I think he’s starting to understand sarcasm and jokes, which I think will also help him a lot as a person.
“Will we fight? How many purchases would that make? It’s interesting because I can’t really fight, but he’s pretty old. Leonard and I would probably make a million purchases around the world.
