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By Charles Brun: Matchroom’s Frank Smith believes the Anthony Joshua vs. Dillian 2 rematch is a mega-fight that the British public is dying to see and willing to pay £26.99 on top of their DAZN subscription for their event on August 12th on pay-per-view.
Smith predicts the Joshua-Whyte 2 fight will bring in 1 million buys on PPV and says it’s the biggest. Those numbers are staggering, given the adverse reaction from fans on social media to this fight.
The British fans that paid for their DAZN subscriptions thinking they were going to be able to see Joshua & Canelo Alvarez as part of their yearly/monthly subscriptions have got to be hopping mad right now.
Canelo Alvarez is no longer with DAZN, having signed a three-fight deal with PBC, and Joshua’s fights are on PPV.
Smith seems to be in denial about how the played out the 33-year-old Joshua (25-3, 22 KOs) and Whyte (29-3, 19 KOs) are at this point in their careers. If this were eight years ago, maybe the lofty 1 million Smith is talking about would be possible, but not anymore.
This fight has little hope of bringing anywhere close to 1M buys, but you can never underestimate what the UK is willing to buy.
For example, Tyson Fury’s fight with 39-year-old journeyman Derek Chisora sold out the 62,850-seat Tottenham Hotspur Stadium last year. The fans didn’t care that Chisora had lost 3 out of his last 4 fights. They still gleefully bought tickets to see this horror.
If British fans were willing to see Fury beat up Chisora, they might be keen on paying £26.99 to watch Joshua fight Whyte, who has arguably lost 3 out of 4 fights. Whyte is another Chisora type.
“I think this can do anywhere between seven hundred thousand to a million,” said Frank Smith to iFL TV when asked how many PPV buys Anthony Joshua vs. Dillian Whyte does. Will Joshua vs. Whyte 2 bring in 1 million buys? Joshua already knocked out Whyte in 2015, and there’s no reason for a second fight. It’s not like that was a competitive match-up. It was only interesting for the first two rounds, and after that, Whyte was exhausted and was just a punching bag for AJ from rounds three to the bitter end in the seventh.
Source: www.boxingnews24.com
