Showtime’s Espinoza rates Mayweather-McGregor as big success

Boxingnews24.com

By Sean Jones: Showtime vice president Stephen Espinoza say it’s still too early to give the official pay-per-view numbers for last Saturday’s fight between Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather Jr. on Showtime pay-per-view a the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Espinoza believes the Mayweather-McGregor fight could come close or even equal the highest pay-per-view record of all-time of 4.6 million buys set by Mayweather and former 8 division world champion Manny Pacquiao in 2015. The PPV totals for Mayweather-McGregor will be released next week. The fans will then get a chance to see how successful the fight was on PPV.

It was a good fight, but not great one. Mayweather won by a 10th round knockout. McGregor was stopped on his feet. He was exhausted and not throwing punches back at Mayweather in round 10, which left referee Robert Byrd with no other choice but to call an early end to the fight. The fans didn’t boo the stoppage.

Mayweather and McGregor did a phenomenal job of creating huge interest in their fight with their pours and interviews. McGregor deserves a great deal of respect for the arduous work that he did in selling the fight. McGregor appeared to be the one giving frequent interviews with the boxing and MMA media on a daily basis. McGregor made himself available to the media, and he was good natured about being overlooked as labeled as a novice.

Right now, Espinoza said to the latimes.com that the Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor is “tracking in the mid-to-high 4 million pay-per-view buys.” If the fight is already at that level, then it’s within an eyelash of equaling or breaking the Mayweather-Pacquiao PPV totals. “If we don’t reach the record, we’re going to be very, very close. We consider it a massive success.”

It’s too bad this was a one and done fight between Mayweather and McGregor, as there’s no one to step into their shoes to create a second event fight that brings in over 4 million buys. Mayweather has retired, again, and he says he’s promised his adviser Al Haymon that he won’t be coming out of retirement to continue his career. McGregor would like to fight Mayweather in the octagon, since it’s a fight that would create a massive amount of interest from the fans if it could be put together.

There are a lot of boxing fans that would like to see Mayweather finally get beaten. Stepping into the octagon would be the first time in Mayweather’s career that he would be the underdog. A lot of fans have been waiting for Mayweather to lose, but he’s always been very selective in the fighters he picks for his fights. Mayweather never fought guys that were a threat to him like Gennady Golovkin, Jermall charlo, Keith Thurman or Errol Spence Jr.

”Sharing the ring with him he is certainly a solid figher,” said McGregor in his Instagram in talking about Mayweather. ”Strong in the clinch, great understanding of frames and head position. He has some very strong tools he could bring into an MMA game for sure.”

That’s a pretty big hint from McGregor that he would like to see Mayweather compete in the octagon against him. McGregor has already gone on record saying that he would like to face Mayweather in the octagon. McGregor said during one of their face offs that Mayweather told him that he might fight him in a rematch in the UFC.

Mayweather has been quiet about that ever since the fight with McGregor ended. All we can hope for is Mayweather to show some interest after he rests for a while. If Mayweather doesn’t return for a rematch with McGregor, there’s going to be a big hole that needs to be filled in the sport of boxing. There’s nobody popular or talented enough to step into Mayweather’s shoes right now. Terence Crawford is talented, but he lacks Mayweather’s charisma. Saul Canelo Alvarez has talent, but he’s not dominant like Mayweather and he still doesn’t speak English.

Mayweather-McGregor is predicted to pass the $600M in revenue that the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight generated in 2015 in their fight on HBO and Showtime PPV. That wasn’t a great fight for the boxing fans. Mayweather fought in a conservative safety first manner, and Pacquiao was injured before the fight with a shoulder problem.

Mayweather’s win over McGregor helped him become part of history with his 50th win of his career, putting him past Rocky Marciano’s record of 49-0. Mayweather finishes his career with a 50-0 record. The 50-0 record might not stand for Mayweather nearly as long as it did for Marciano, considering there are a number of fighters with unbeaten records that are approaching Mayweather’s new record. One of them is middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (37-0, 33 KOs).

It’s a little easier in this era to build up records compared to in the past. You have different boxing promoters who choose not to work with other promoters to set up the best fights. The way the promoters have sections off their fighters from certain other promoters makes it easier for guys in their stables to put together impressive records without risk. There are a lot of unhappy fans that don’t like the idea that Mayweather picked up win No. 50 against a fighter with no boxing experience in McGregor.

Mayweather and McGregor created the blueprint in how to build a huge event fight by their trash talking, and comedic styles of interacting with one another during the press tours. McGregor did most of the comedy stuff with his spontaneous way of communicating. It didn’t seem rehearsed with

McGregor. He always seemed like he was going out and winging it with his trash talk of Mayweather. For boxers wanting to follow the blueprint Mayweather and McGregor created to sell their fight, it’s going to take a ton of trash talking and some skills in drama. McGregor is just out of this world when he’s on stage. He just happens to be a great fighter as well as great talker. McGregor’s boxing skills were obviously limited, but he did a good enough job to make it interesting for the fans.