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Canelo vs Saunders: Pre-sale tickets break record, general sale on now for May 8 fight

The demand is clearly there for Canelo-Saunders in Texas.

TCL’s Hand And Foot Ceremony For Boxer Canelo Alvarez Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images
Scott Christ is the managing editor of Bad Left Hook and has been covering boxing for SB Nation since 2006.

Matchroom Boxing are expecting over 60,000 fans in attendance for the May 8 fight between Canelo Alvarez and Billy Joe Saunders at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, and over 40,000 are already gone after the pre-sale for the event, with general sale tickets now up for grabs. The pre-sale broke a record for the broker Seat Geek.

This will be — by quite a bit — the biggest boxing event since the initial COVID-19 setbacks hit the sport just over a year ago. We have seen events with fans in attendance at stadiums in the United States and Australia and New Zealand, but nothing like 60,000.

“The pre-sale numbers were fantastic, and I am sure that on Cinco de Mayo weekend, we’re going to have a full house to watch this massive unification fight,” said promoter Eddie Hearn.

“It’s great to be able to stage a fight of such huge global significance to the home of the Dallas Cowboys and fill that wonderful stadium with fans. We’re going to be putting on a night that those lucky enough to be in there will never forget.”

Whether or not an attendance this big is a good idea in six weeks, I don’t know, but it’s going to happen, and it’s clear the demand is very much there.

Canelo (55-1-2, 37 KO) will be defending the WBC and WBA super middleweight titles, while Saunders (30-0, 14 KO) puts his WBO belt up for the fight. The event will stream live on DAZN.

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