Via San Volz: Deontay Wilder’s comeback fight against Robert Helenius raked in about 75,000 PPV purchases for their October 15 competition on FOX Sports pay-per-view at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
Wilder knocked out unlucky 38-year-old Helenius in the first round, so fans didn’t get their money’s worth in this match.
As bad as the main event battle between Wilder and Helenius is still on paper, a good percentage of the 75k pay-per-view likely buys generated by the Caleb Plant vs Anthony co-feature duel Dirrell. It was a much better fight between the two.
With this supposedly PPV unworthy match selling for $74.99 and competing with a rematch between undisputed lightweight champion Devin Haney and George Kambosos Jr on the same night, the The event organizer for Wilder and Helenius was in trouble.
They should have known that Wilder-Helenius wouldn’t excite boxing fans. We’ve seen the same thing with Andy Ruiz Jr’s last two matches against Luis Ortiz and Chris Arreola sold on FOX Sports PPV, and neither of those matches drew in huge numbers.
The lesson to be learned from the Wilder vs Helenius fight is that if Deontay wants to fight in future pay-per-view fights, he needs to face the famous fighters the boxing public aspires to be. watch him play.
Examples of boxer fans who wouldn’t mind paying to watch Wilder fight:
- Andy Ruiz Jr
- Anthony Joshua
- Tyson Fury
- Joe Joyce
Wilder’s low pay-per-view figure could leave him vulnerable when negotiating a fight with Joshua or Fury in the future. Their promoters might look at Wilder’s 75k purchases made for Helenius and see it as their excuse not to split the good money on him.
It would have been a better idea if Wilder’s match against Helenius had been shown on regular FOX instead of pay-per-view, but his management has gone the PPV route.
Dan Rafael said: “The Deontay Wilder-Robert Helenius fight generated around 75,000 pay-per-view purchases in the US, multiple sources with knowledge of the event told Fight Freaks Unite. Against the weirdos unite.
“This includes purchases across all platforms, be it linear pay-per-view on cable and satellite services as well as digital platforms like PPV. com and WEBPAGE. TELEVISION.”
