‘GGG’ apparently won a decision against the Mexican superstar at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, only for two judges to deny the Kazakh the spoils on fight night.
Despite the disputed result, Golovkin v Canelo was the best showing by a high-profile ‘boxing’ Pay-Per-View encounter since the Mayweather v Manny Pacquiao record-breaker in May 2015.
‘MayPac’ boasted an incredible 4.6m purchases, something the recent cross-codes bout featuring Conor McGregor couldn’t even manage (4.4m), whilst Golovkin and Canelo still have some way to go in order to fully break through the market Mayweather ruled over.
The HBO fight scored a respectable 1.3m sales on the PPV platform, overtaking Canelo’s May battle wth Mexican compatriot Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. by 100,000.
Calls for a rematch have been heard ever since the result was read out by Michael Buffer on the Nevada Strip, but there remains contrasting reports on whether Canelo is fully on board to face Golovkin again.
A date of May 5, 2018 has been proposed for the return to go down at the same venue, although both fighters will require a bigger slice of the pie now the numbers have been fully crunched.
There’s no doubting who was the biggest star leading into the original meeting, but following the outcome of this month’s encounter, Golovkin can have valid claims to at least being on par with his fiercest divisional rival.
