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Crawford-Porter garners 135,000 PPV buys

Terence Crawford defended his WBO welterweight title with a 10th-round TKO of Shawn Porter. Photo by Steve Marcus/Getty Images
Fighters Network
24
Nov

The Ring has learned through multiple reliable sources that last Saturday’s WBO welterweight title fight between Terence Crawford and Shawn Porter garnered 135,000 pay-per-view buys on ESPN pay-per-view, through ESPN+.

The 34-year-old Crawford (38-0, 29 knockouts) defended the WBO title for the fifth time in an exciting clash, stopping Porter (31-4-1, 17 KOs) for the first time in his career before a sold-out crowd of 11,568 at the Michelob ULTRA Arena at Mandalay Bay.

“I feel like there was a lot of opportunities left on the table,” Crawford told Porter Tuesday night on “The Porter Way Podcast.” “You know what I mean? Not only with fighters, but also with pay-per-view. Like for instance, me and Shawn Porter fought on a app. There were so many people that was telling me they don’t know how to get the app on the TV, they don’t know how to do it.

“And, you know, the average elderly or person that doesn’t, you know, know tech, they not gonna know how to get the app on the TV. So, what do they do? They don’t buy it. You know, so I feel like, you know, that was a setup [in] its own right, right then and there.”



According to Keith Idec of Boxingscene, Crawford-Porter out-performed Crawford’s first two pay-per-view main events – victories over Viktor Postol in July 2016 (reportedly 50,000) and Amir Khan in April 2019 (reportedly 125,000).

Crawford knocked Porter twice in the 10th round, when Kenny Porter, Shawn’s father and trainer, ended the fight at 1:21 of the 10th.

The 135,000 PPV figure missed the estimated break-even mark of 150,000 PPV buys. It also may speak of Crawford’s marketability as a PPV attraction.

The Canelo Alvarez-Caleb Plant drew 800,000 PPV buys on Nov. 6 in Las Vegas. Alvarez is the universally accepted No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter in the world, and Crawford is considered among the top-3 pound-for-pound fighters. The Ring has Crawford No. 3 on its pound-for-pound list.

After the fight, Porter, 34, announced his retirement.

Joseph Santoliquito is an award-winning sportswriter who has been working for Ring Magazine/RingTV.com since October 1997 and is the president of the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be followed on twitter @JSantoliquito.

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