Golden Boy: Canelo-Khan did just under 600,000 buys on PPV

Dan Rafael of ESPN.com is reporting that via a Golden Boy source, the Canelo-Khan PPV last Saturday night did better numbers that previously rumored -- in fact, far better, supposedly coming in at just under 600,000 buys, which would render lots of my sick ass thinkpiece thoughts from earlier rather moot, being quite honest. (I mean, I stand by the general statements, but many wouldn't really apply to this fight specifically if these are the numbers.)

The previous rumored number was 332,000 buys from Rick Glaser, which frankly wasn't terribly surprising to me, and neither would be a number just under 600,000, to be fair. I didn't exactly know what to expect, so no number that came back would have shocked me, save for the show being at a million or higher. The fight had no buzz going in, but it did have the May 7 date, which is significant. That show is just traditionally a big fight weekend, and a lot of people are used to buying a fight on the first Saturday in May.

600K is, obviously, far better than the earlier number. And it would indicate that Canelo can do pretty well on pay-per-view without a big help, because this absolutely does not change my thoughts on whether or not Amir Khan is a draw.

Is 600,000 a number that everyone is satisfied with? That's still debatable. HBO not releasing the number would indicate that they may not have been -- not that they were dreadfully upset about it, either, but they left it up to Golden Boy. And if nothing else, the rumors of a truly dismal performance may have forced them to at least come out and say that while it may not have been the mega-hit they hoped, it wasn't that bad.

If this number is accurate, it would also mean that Canelo does have the top two post-Mayweather-Pacquiao PPV numbers. If it's not, well, we'll know soon enough, because someone will get a real number, or close to a real number. If it splits and winds up around 450K or so, that would still be right around the numbers for Mayweather-Berto and Pacquiao-Bradley III. (Both of those fights were said to do between 400-500K, with some estimates a little lower for each.)