LAS VEGAS -- The UFC has already poured more than $20 million into its Noche UFC card, featuring a bantamweight title fight in the main event between budding superstar Sean O'Malley and No. 1 contender Merab Dvalishvili on Saturday at the $2.3 billion Sphere.
With that type of investment, it might have made sense to go on a date in which there wasn't such direct competition as there will be on Saturday, when two blocks south on The Strip, Canelo Alvarez will defend his super middleweight championship against unbeaten Edgar Berlanga at T-Mobile Arena.
Dana White, the UFC's charismatic president/CEO, just shrugs.
"There's always something going on," White said. "There's always competition no matter when you go."
Alvarez is no stranger to this kind of competition, but White ought to consider himself fortunate it's not a mega-fight for Alvarez. Alvarez could be fighting interim WBC light heavyweight champion David Benavidez, a bout that would undoubtedly grab hold of the interest of the Mexican and Mexican-American fans who are such good pay-per-view customers.
That's one of the best fights that could be made in boxing and one of the few which would have a chance to get close to one million buys.
Berlanga is a massive long-shot and isn't particularly well known, so the pay-per-view sales will be far less. At DraftKings sportsbook, Alvarez is a whopping -1800 favorite, which is galling considering the $90 pay-per-view price they're charging. It's gouging fight fans, plain and simple, charging so much for such a perceived mismatch. Berlanga is +1000 to win, while Alvarez is -290 to win by knockout.
Alvarez and the Premier Boxing Champions are apparently relying on the fact that Berlanga is of Puerto Rican descent -- even though he was born in Brooklyn -- to stoke the usually white hot Mexico-Puerto Rico rivalry. There isn't much of a rivalry, though, when no one outside of Berlanga's team, family and friends believes he has a serious chance to win.
The night Mike Tyson loomed over Bowe-Holyfield 3
This is far from the first time a pair of big cards went head-to-head on the same night, however. On Nov. 4, 1995, HBO Sports was the rubber match of the Riddick Bowe-Evander Holyfield saga. Bowe and Holyfield were scheduled to meet at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.
Out of the blue, promoter Don King made a stunning and dramatic announcement: Mike Tyson, the former heavyweight champion who earlier in 1995 had been released from an Indiana prison, would fight on the same night. King made a deal with Showtime for Tyson to fight Buster Mathis Jr. in his second comeback bout since his release.
Bowe and Holyfield were the two best heavyweights in the world at that point, and their rivalry had already produced two epic confrontations. Tyson, though, was the biggest star in boxing and one of the biggest in sports at the time. Mathis was hardly a big name, but this was Tyson we were talking about.
Plus, fans didn't have to pay extra to watch Tyson fight Mathis. It was on Showtime, while Bowe-Holyfield 3 would be a pay-per-view bout produced by HBO.
A quirk of fate, and a twist of Tyson's thumb, allowed Bowe and Holyfield to dodge a major bullet. On Nov. 1, three days before fight night, Tyson announced he'd broken his thumb and wouldn't compete. The fight eventually landed on Fox on Dec. 16 in Philadelphia.
That's not expected in the case of either fight set for Saturday, but Alvarez has been down this path before.
Alvarez has walked this road before
On Sept. 15, 2012, at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas on the UNLV campus, Sergio Martinez was set to challenge Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. for the WBC middleweight title. Martinez was one of the best pound-for-pound fighters in boxing at the time, and Chavez was a massive star, the son of one of the legends of the sport.
It's only a drive and a 5-iron west down Tropicana Avenue from the Thomas & Mack to the MGM Grand Garden, and yet, Golden Boy Promotions opted to put on a card opposite Chavez-Martinez. Alvarez headlined that night against Josesito Lopez.
In what may be a good omen for the PBC and the UFC on Saturday, both cards that night sold out. The Chavez-Martinez card sold 16,939 tickets and gave away 751 comps for a total in house of 17,690. The bout did a paid gate of $3.05 million. The Alvarez-Lopez card sold 12,860 tickets, with 1,659 comps for a total of 14,519. It did a paid gate of $1.62 million.
Esther Lin/Premier Boxing Champions
Canelo Alvarez (L) gestures to Edgar Berlanga, second from right. They fight Saturday for the super middleweight title at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Canelo waited while UFC proceeded
On Nov. 2, 2019, Alvarez challenged Sergey Kovalev for a light heavyweight title at the MGM Grand Garden on the same night that UFC 244 went on in New York. Promoters at the Alvarez-Kovalev card inexplicably waited for the UFC show to end before having the Alvarez-Kovalev fight begin in the apparent hope of squeezing out a few last pay-per-view buys. They showed numerous pictures of Alvarez lying on a table or seated on a couch in his locker room, waiting for the UFC to end and his fight to begin.
What they didn't think of, of course, was their fans on the East Coast, who had to wait until 1 in the morning to see the fight they'd paid good money to watch.
It was a massive miscalculation that made Alvarez look small. If you're going to go head-to-head, then go for it with gusto. That's not what was
There is about a 20 percent crossover in boxing and MMA fans, so the dueling events won't impact each other as much as two boxing cards of two MMA cards going head-to-head. Either promotion, clearly, would rather have the night and the media attention to itself, but it would be a shock if both shows didn't succeed at the gate.
Berlanga doesn't provide much impetus for a casual boxing fan to make the trip to Las Vegas to see the show live or, for that matter, to purchase it on pay-per-view. While there have been complaints about the UFC's fight card, the venue is so unique that it actually trumps what should be an outstanding main event between O'Malley and Dvalishvili.
Canelo's sales magic is slipping a bit. His numbers in his three most recent bouts, against John Ryder, Jermell Charlo and Jaime Munguia, were pedestrian and far from his peak when he almost always exceeded 500,000 sales and frequently exceeded one million.
That's not likely to change with the perception that Berlanga has little chance to win.
It's going to be a win for fight fans, though it would be nice if the fans had the opportunity to watch both shows if they so chose.
The Nevada Athletic Commission will have a windfall, for sure, collecting its tax on gate receipts.
Both sports, though, will survive the night just fine.
Courtesy UFC
UFC bantamweight champion 'Suga' Sean O'Malley.