By Miguel Rivera
The rematch between IBO, WBA, WBC middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin and Mexican superstar Saul "Canelo" Alvarez is close to being sold out, according to Golden Boy Promotions President Eric Gomez.
The contest, which is scheduled to take place on September 15th during Mexican Independence Day weekend, will take place at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Gomez indicates that just over 2,000 tickets are available.
Unlike the first fight, which sold out just over two months before the event, they now hope to have all of the tickets sold out by the beginning of September, once the endorsement of the undercard has been confirmed.
"The truth is that ticket sales are going very well, we have a little more than 2,000 tickets, just the promotional stage is coming so we hope to have the tickets sold out by the end of this month or the beginning of next month. We have a lot of things to compete with..... the World Cup just ended, we have the NFL, Major League Baseball, other events," said Gomez to ESPN Deportes.
"A month away is when you start pushing everything, you start with the strongest promotion, and we have already sold more than 17,500 tickets. We can certainly say that it will be a great entry for September 15 in the ' Super Bowl 'of boxing."
For the first fight, Canelo and Golovkin achieved the third best box office numbers for an event in Las Vegas - by raising a gate of over 27 million and selling a total of 17,318 tickets. Floyd Mayweather is the only one who has surpassed them, selling 16,219 tickets against Manny Pacquiao for a total of over 72 million, and against Conor McGregor with 13,094 tickets for over 55 million.
When they fought last year, also at T-Mobile, the contest ended in a controversial twelve round split draw. This time around, both boxers are promising a knockout ending.