By Vadim Pushkin
Light heavyweight Sergey Kovalev (30-1, 26 KOs) is not going to take the blame for the lower than expected buyrate for his November 2016 showdown with Andre Ward (31-0, 15KOs).
Kovalev vs. Ward was one of the most anticipated fights of the year, and it was marinated for most of the year with both boxers taking two interim-fights to get ready for the fall encounter at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. That anticipation did not translate over to people spending money.
Coming into the fight, neither boxer had ever headlined a major pay-per-view event.
As far as the in-ring action, there wasn't much drama outside of Kovalev scoring a knockdown in the second round. There was a lot of holding and wrestling, and in some of the rounds neither boxer was throwing a lot of punches.
After the fight was over, Ward walked away with a close twelve round unanimous decision, 114-113 on all three cards, and he captured Kovalev's IBF, WBA, WBO belts in the process.
Regarding the low pay-per-view figure, Kovalev attributes the disappointing number to Ward's lack of dramatics in some of his fights, and the Russian boxer also believes that a lot of his fans expected him to get on the scorecards.
"Yes [the buy rate figure was low], it was only 165 thousand people [who paid]... But everyone [involved with the promotion was] unhappy [about the buy rate], not just me. I think that, probably, more than half the audience [who paid] was due to my work. It was my boxing audience that was drawn to their TVs. In America, there are just as many people who speak Russian as there are Mexicans, and those people support me," Kovalev told Elena Sobol.
"We expected to sell about 300 thousand [pay per view buys]. For Ward, hardly anyone is willing to pay [to watch him], because he is a boring fighter. We also think that a lot of people knew, perhaps, that regardless of outcome of the fight, that I will not be able to win [a decision on the cards]."
There was an immediate rematch clause in their fight contract. The second fight is expected to take place in the first half of the year.
