As if the Sept. 14 mega-bout between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez already big enough, Golden Boy Promotions announced that Danny Garcia and Lucas Matthysse will meet for Garcia’s WBC and WBA super junior welterweight titles as the co-main event at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nev.
The Garcia-Matthysee bout was the one fight outside of Mayweather-Canelo that the fans wanted to see made most and in a surprising move we will get to see the two-most anticipated fights go down on the same night. Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaefer said the days of Butterbean on the undercard were over and he wasn’t kidding with this one.
During the conference call Schaefer said that the Garcia-Matthysse bout will be the most expensive second bout in history, but did not divulge on how much each fighter would be getting paid.
With the live gate for the bout already reaching a record-breaking $19 million, expect the pay-per-view numbers to near the all-time record set during the Mayweather-Oscar De La Hoya bout in 2007 of 2.5 million buys.
Schaefer said that even after the press tour for Mayweather-Canelo ended with around 10,000 fans at the event in Los Angeles, Calif. he had a good feeling that the PPV record could be met. Now with the announcement of the Garcia-Matthysse bout, it would be surprising that the PPV numbers don’t come close to record-breaking territory.
In another unprecedented move, it was announced the Garcia (26-0, 16 KOs) and Matthysse (34-2, 32 KOs) would embark on their own press tour, something that is unheard of for an undercard bout. The dates were not announced on the call, but was said that L.A. and New York were among the destinations and the rest of the tour will be announced next week.
One of the key players to getting the bout signed was Mayweather himself, as Schaefer said he wanted to make sure the fight was signed for Sept. 14.
The rest of the Mayweather-Canelo card will be announced in two weeks, but it really doesn’t matter who else is on it now, as the hype around this card has boiled over and for boxing fans Sept. 14 cannot come any sooner.
