Any word on the PPV numbers?

[puppy_dogg]

dempsey- sharkey? i can never emember who dempsey was fighting for that gate

[spinksjinx]

Good guess...think a few years earlier.

I know it was Dempsey, he had a lot of successful fights and broke a good bit of records for his time. After all he is one of the top 5 most favorite heavyweights of all time.

Was it the Carpenter fight? It had an insane amount of people their. I imagine it would have grossed like 2 million with the attendence record there.

[Bombardier]

I know it was Dempsey, he had a lot of successful fights and broke a good bit of records for his time. After all he is one of the top 5 most favorite heavyweights of all time.

Was it the Carpenter fight? It had an insane amount of people their. I imagine it would have grossed like 2 million with the attendence record there.

Yes, it was the Carpentier fight, and you're also right in that it came close to grossing 2 million: $1,789,238, according to the number I dug up on ESPN...of course the PPV numbers were quite poor .

I think all of Dempsey's big fights drew 100,000+ people, and it's amazing to think that this fight made this much in 1921 dollars (the fight took place on July 2, 1921). If you've ever seen clips of the old Dempsey fights, it's just a mass of people around the ring as far as you can see.

Here's a good pic of Dempsey - Carpentier for those who haven't seen it:

http://www.fighttoys.com/Dempsey-Carpentier%202.jpg

[puppy_dogg]

mabye boxrec is wrong, check out the numbers they have for that fight.

http://www.boxrec.com/boxer_display.php?boxer_id=009009

[Bombardier]

mabye boxrec is wrong, check out the numbers they have for that fight.

http://www.boxrec.com/boxer_display.php?boxer_id=009009

Did they have a gate number, or just the attendance? I guess I was a bit off on the attendance mark, though 80000 is still incredible for a fight. I mean, the people in the back must not have been able to see a damn thing.

I know his fights had tons of gate crashers, as well, so the actual attendance was probably even higher than that.

[sisforshaq]

My guess would be like 250 to 300 k. Who knows though

[sisforshaq]

On the Floyd/Gatti fight

[tri4ben2]

That was a time when the heavyweight championship of boxing was the biggest prize in sports. The stadiums for the Tunney fights were made special for the fight and then torn down to make houses in the nearby neighborhoods.

Today there are some pretty popular fighters who have large fan bases, especially in other countries. However, that doesn't translate to big gates and PPV numbers, especially when the fighters are from third world countries.

I heard a couple years ago that Joe Mesi was going to fight Mike Tyson in the stadium that the Bills play in. That would have been about 60-70,000 people.

If Ricky Hatton could make a mega-event, it could sell out the Manchester United stadium, but I am not sure that Mayweather could make that big a fight.

I would expect those records to be broken again in the next few years. Many fighters are building huge local fan bases before HBO even hears about them, and as they shine on the world stage, there will be millons of fans that care about them.

Here is a short list of fighters that could break those records.

Pac - Could draw 100,000 people in the Phillipines, at a price of about $1 per ticket.

Hatton - Brittish boxing is not as big as people here make it out to be.
Cotto? - There are not really all that many Puerto Ricans.
DLH - Too far past his prime. DHL in 1999 vs Hatton 2005 at 140 in Manchester could be huge.

The only heavyweight with crossover appeal is Wlad Klitschko, but there is not another fighter that is an international name that would come to Germany to fight him.

[Marjoh]

June 28, 2005 - Floyd Mayweather Jr's promoter Bob Arum has informed **********.com that the Floyd Mayweather Jr-Arturo Gatti title fight has generated at least 350,000 PPV buys. Arum says the final number could approach 400,000. Arum again confirmed to **********.com that Mayweather will return to the ring on HBO PPV August 12. Arum also stated that he feels a PPV between Mayweather and WBO welterweight champion Antonio Margarito would do bigger PPV numbers than the Gatti fight "because now Mayweather's a star." Obviously boxing fans would prefer to see Mayweather take on Ricky Hatton, Zab Judah or Shane Mosley before he faces Margarito. It's also tough to imagine Mayweather-Margarito generating more PPV dollars than Hatton, Judah or Mosley.

Source: **********s

There you have it. Not bad I would say.

- D

[Derranged_]

Now that we're on the subject of ppv buys, how many did the Tyson-Mcbride fight generate?