Oscar De La Hoya has named his fighter, Ryan Garcia, as the biggest pay-per-view star in boxing following his loss to Gervonta Davis.
In a prime-versus-prime battle under the lights of Las Vegas, both Davis and Garcia put their undefeated records on the line for, as Garcia put it, the good of the sport.
He came up short in the seventh round when a crisp body shot from ‘Tank’ rendered him unable to continue. As Davis celebrates a career-best win and Garcia licks his wounds, both will be happy about the financial success of the event.
Reports suggest that it was bought on box office 1.2 million times, and the gate generated over $22 million to move into the top five most successful cards in Nevada history.
Garcia’s promoter, De La Hoya, is no stranger to those big numbers from his fighting days, and took to Twitter to give his man most of the credit.
“Ryan Garcia is the new face of PPV like it or not. Gervonta only did 200K PPV a few times without Ryan. With Ryan fight generates 1 million plus PPV.”
Davis responded simply, sending De La Hoya a picture of the moment he beat Garcia and garnering 25,000 likes.
https://t.co/mJowzCuS5Kpic.twitter.com/Ovx4qhbL71
— Gervonta Davis (@Gervontaa) April 30, 2023
Perhaps a better point to be made is that good match-ups are what drives pay-per-view buys.
There’s no question that both brought huge followings to the ring, but De La Hoya’s hint that Garcia may have been anywhere near the final number without ‘Tank’ is misjudged.
As for measuring who was the bigger star, it will never be an exact science. Having said that, and despite Garcia gaining new fans for his willingness to make the fight as a somewhat tortured B-side, the loss ultimately means that his stock falls and ‘Tank’s skyrockets.