The Big Question: Will you pay to see Andy Ruiz Jr vs Chris Arreola?

Last week our Big Question was about the April 17 Triller Fight Club pay-per-view, which drew mixed (at best) reviews as a TV presentation.

81 percent of those who responded to our poll said Triller pushed the presentation too far, while 19 percent were on board. It’s a tricky question and one, as all of these are, asked inside a bubble. Personally, I thought they pushed too far in the other direction, but I also recognize I’m not their target audience for a Jake Paul fight, not really.

And Triller’s Ryan Kavanaugh confirms something I’ve thought might be the case: The company will not have that same presentation for the June 5 event featuring Teofimo Lopez vs George Kambosos Jr. Different type of show, different main event, different target audience to try and get to buy and have a good time. Teofimo Lopez ain’t Jake Paul, Jake Paul ain’t Teofimo Lopez. The audiences aren’t going to be the same, either.

We’ve got another pay-per-view this coming Saturday, featuring the comeback fight of Andy Ruiz Jr (33-2, 22 KO), as he takes on Chris Arreola (38-6-1, 33 KO) in a heavyweight clash from Carson, Calif.

How to Watch Ruiz vs Arreola

Date: Saturday, May 1 | Start Time: 9:00 pm ET
Location: Dignity Health Sports Park - Carson, CA
Streaming: PPV (Buy Here!) | TV: PPV
Online Coverage: BadLeftHook.com

Worse and less intriguing fights than Ruiz-Arreola wind up as pay-per-view main events pretty frequently, but they’re usually not $50, and they’re almost never backed by major outlets. This, however, is a FOX and PBC pay-per-view main event. And at this level, people usually expect more than a guy who took a dump the last time we saw him fight facing a 40-year-old who hasn’t won a significant fight in almost eight years, when Arreola ended the Seth Mitchell hype train for good.

The pros here are that Ruiz, 31, really can be a heavyweight contender and a lot of fun to watch when he’s 255 or even 270 instead of 285 on the scales. A lot has been made of him working himself toward much better condition for this fight, and if you’ve seen any of the clips or images, you know he’s been focused under trainer Eddy Reynoso in the Canelo Alvarez camp.

And it really should be fun to watch. Arreola never got over the hump in his career and isn’t going to now, but he always comes to fight. The last time we saw him, he lost to Adam Kownacki but set a CompuBox record as a heavyweight, throwing 1,125 punches. Ruiz’s style will give Arreola chances to throw punches, and he’s never been much for defense, so Ruiz should be able to throw back and land plenty.

The undercard features three fights (Omar Figueroa Jr vs Abel Ramos, Sebastian Fundora vs Jorge Cota, and Jesus Ramos vs Javier Molina) that are solidly-matched and also could be good entertainment.

But is a good chance of fun fights worth $50, or do you need something better and bigger than this to actually pay for the show, especially in an environment where there was just a pay-per-view two weeks ago, and plenty more are coming?