Cotto vs Canelo: Early pay-per-view buy estimates looking strong

A month removed from the Gennady Golovkin-David Lemieux flop and just two months after the Floyd Mayweather-Andre Berto flop, boxing just might not be ready to pack up all its things and go to the grave just yet. Early estimates for Saturday's Miguel Cotto-Canelo Alvarez fight are looking good, according to ESPN's Dan Rafael.

Rafael tweeted today that he's hearing the fight is "a lock for 900,000 buys," which would make it easily the second-biggest fight of 2015, trailing only (obviously) May's ultra mega super double blockbuster Mayweather-Pacquiao event. For the most insane projections out there, like Oscar De La Hoya sorta hinting at a possible two million buys or a few deranged tweets, this might sound bad, but 900K for a non-Mayweather or Pacquiao fight is unheard of since 2008, so you'd have to say that this number, if true or even if it's a little high, is a huge success.

Canelo (46-1-1, 32 KO) won the vacant WBC middleweight belt and the lineal middleweight championship with his 12-round decision over Cotto (40-5, 33 KO) in a fight that seemed to mostly please its intended audiences. I've not heard much backlash about this being a bad show, so that's good, and it also would bode well for Alvarez going forward as boxing's potential new superstar.