Andre Ward is a great fighter, a maestro in shorts the likes of which rarely comes along in boxing these days.
He is also not a huge draw.
That point will be proven emphatically Nov. 19, when his light heavyweight title bout with Sergey Kovalev at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas flops at the pay-per-view window.
It?s a great bout between arguably the two best fighters in the word, the classic boxer vs. slugger match that usually generates mass excitement.
They?re a combined 60-0-1 with 41 knockouts and each have beaten high-quality opposition.
But they?ll be lucky if their pay-per-view hits 200,000 buys. It will be the third straight weekend in which consumers will have a pay-per-view bout to choose from. Last week, Manny Pacquiao fought on pay-per-view, and indications are that the fight did in the low 200,000 range.
On Saturday, UFC 205 will be held at Madison Square Garden in New York, and every indication is that it could be a record-setting pay-per-view sale. It?s definitely going to exceed one million sales and has a shot to hit a UFC-record of two million.
And then comes Ward-Kovalev.
It?s a match between one guy who speaks little English and who has been frequently accused of racist behavior, and another who despite obvious talent and an Olympic gold medal hasn?t been embraced by the public.
But perhaps a win over Kovalev will be the vehicle that lifts Ward into the mainstream consciousness, much in the way that both Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather became household names and big pay-per-view draws after defeating Oscar De La Hoya. Sergey Kovalev (left) and Andre Ward are two of the best fighters in the world. (Getty Images) More
There are a lot of similarities between the careers of Ward and Mayweather, in particular. Ward is 30-0 with 15 knockouts.
It?s his first pay-per-view show, and expectations are (or at least should be) modest. If this fight does 300,000 buys, the heads of Roc Nation and Main Events should be feted with a ticker-tape parade in Manhattan.
In 2005, when Mayweather made his debut as a pay-per-view headliner against Arturo Gatti, he entered the bout with a 33-0 record. He was regarded among the best fighters in the world at that point, but by no means was he universally recognized as the best.
I tabbed him the best in the world in late 1999, and believe he held that mythical position for the remainder of his career, but at the time of the Gatti fight, there was plenty of dispute about how good Mayweather really was.
He was criticized for the fights he wasn?t taking, for supposedly ducking opponents who could have beaten him. And while he was a defensive whiz in those days, he wasn?t thought to be a great offensive fighter.
Similarly, Ward is regarded as a great defensive fighter, though he has a better r?sum? of quality opposition now than Mayweather did in 2005. He?s also regarded as a better offensive fighter. Prior to the Gatti fight, Mayweather was often boastful, but he wasn?t outrageous and he spoke regularly in the clich?s that boxers use.
I remember sitting down with him for a one-on-one interview in Caesars Atlantic City a few days before the Gatti fight. His nickname at the time was ?Pretty Boy? Floyd, and I?d covered his career closely.
With veteran publicist Lee Samuels of Top Rank sitting in with us, I spent the next 45 minutes listening to a man I?d never heard before. Mayweather was playing the bad-guy role against Gatti, who was beloved in Atlantic City.
Mayweather?s performance was breathtaking. He cast himself as a villain, because he knew it would sell, and just like pro wrestlers do, he created a persona that would make fans care. Some loved him and some hated him, but he was confident it would make people buy.
They did.
He sold above the 300,000-range for his fights with Gatti, Zab Judah and Carlos Baldomir.
In 2007, he signed to fight De La Hoya, then the biggest star in boxing, and the show went wild. It sold nearly 2.5 million, which eclipsed the old pay-per-view record by 500,000 sales.
