By Keith Idec
NEW YORK – Gennady Golovkin’s promoter is confident two pay-per-view boxing events can succeed within a three-week span late this summer.
Tom Loeffler, managing director for K2 Promotions, acknowledged that having the Floyd Mayweather Jr.-Conor McGregor fight take place August 26 in Las Vegas, just three weeks before Canelo Alvarez-Golovkin, “isn’t ideal.” Loeffler still thinks that the Alvarez-Golovkin fight will do huge business both at the gate and on pay-per-view September 16 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Now that both pay-per-view events are official, Loeffler said before a press conference Tuesday night in Manhattan that he and Oscar De La Hoya, Alvarez’s promoter, can’t worry about Mayweather-McGregor impacting Alvarez-Golovkin.
“From the business side, we were just excited with the announcement of this fight May 6th [in Las Vegas],” Loeffler said. “We can’t really control other sporting events – if there’s a big other sporting event, maybe a big college football game, you know, other sport events. And with Mayweather-McGregor on pay-per-view three weeks before, I wouldn’t say it’s ideal. But all we can do is promote this fight, this event, to the best of our abilities.
“I think it sells itself, with the two guys fighting in it. I honestly think both will be successful. I don’t know if people that buy that fight are gonna be satisfied. You know, there were a lot of frustrated people that bought the fight that Floyd had with Pacquiao, that had never bought a pay-per-view before. And then, afterwards swore they were never gonna buy a pay-per-view again. But that can’t influence what we do. We can only promote it to the best of our abilities and we go from there.”
Tickets for the Alvarez-Golovkin card went on sale this past Thursday at 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. PT. To purchase tickets, call 888-929-7849 or visit www.t-mobilearena.com or www.axs.com.
The closest ringside seats are extremely expensive ($5,000 apiece). Other price points for Alvarez-Golovkin tickets are $2,500, $2,000, $1,500, $800, $700, $500 and $300.
The pay-per-view price hasn’t been announced, but it is expected to cost $75 to view in HD.
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.