Matchroom Boxing Promoter Eddie Hearn, has declared how many pay-per-view buys Anthony Joshua’s upcoming heavyweight showdown with Francis Ngannou will do, and he is expecting it to outperform Tyson Fury vs. Ngannou by some margin.
Ngannou shocked the world when he dropped Fury on his debut back in October, before losing a razor-thin split-decision.
During the aftermath, rumours circulated that the card achieved under 70,000 buys in the United States, despite both men being huge stars across the pond, due to the perception that the bout would be a mismatch.
Speaking to Seconds Out, Hearn anticipated that Joshua vs. Ngannou will surpass one-million buys worldwide.
“I expect Joshua to do a job on him but I do expect him [Ngannou] to be dangerous, it’s just going to be one of them [relieving moments] when it is over.
“It’ll do a million [pay-per-view buys]. It’s a big fight and it’s a mad world that we live in where you’re only as good as your last fight, where all of a sudden a lot of people believe that AJ could be the best heavyweight in the world and could beat [Tyson] Fury.
“One of the problems with [selling] the Ngannou-Fury fight was that no one really believed that he had a chance, I didn’t. Now, people are looking at him in that fight, dropping him [Fury] and nearly beating him, and saying ‘he might win this’.
So, you’ve got the MMA world, you’ve got the boxing world, the casual world and now you have got a lot of believers in Francis Ngannou. I think that it is going to be a huge night.”
Joshua will meet ‘The Predator’ on Friday March 8th in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, topping a pay-per-view bill that is available for purchase on both DAZN PPV and Sky Sports Box Office in the United Kingdom.