There have been all kinds of questions and quandaries regarding the tickets sales for Gennady Golovkin and David Lemieux’s middleweight title unification on HBO PPV October 17th. The initial reports had suggested stronger than expected numbers during the presale stage before the tickets were released to the general public, putting the number at 5,000 sold.
At Tuesday’s press conference for the fight, Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler confirmed ticket sales have reached the 15,000 mark, a number that all but ensures a sellout of the 20,789 seat Madison Square Garden.
Loeffler had been aware of the doubters that thought the ticket sales would be modest beforehand, and then those skeptics that questioned the stellar numbers once tickets became available. He did not gloat, even though he had reason to, but he did give facts – the kind of facts that ultimately provide for the logical explanation as to why ticket sales have surpassed even his expectations.
“Those are all legitimate ticket sales. A lot of naysayers are like ‘how could that happen; how could Gennady Golovkin versus Lemieux sell that many tickets?’ We doubled any presale that they’ve had here at the Garden. Price the tickets fairly and whenever you have two champions fighting each other, two big punchers, you’re guaranteed fireworks. So we have a great show,” Loeffler told Tha Boxing Voice’s Nestor Gibbs.
The K2 promoter was quick to acknowledge the interesting undercard, specifically crediting Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez, who leads the charge on the Golovkin undercard for the 2nd time. Gonzalez was previously on Golovkin’s undercard for his fight with Willie Monroe Jr. back in May of this year. That card was also very successful taking place at the Forum in Inglewood, California and doing very solid numbers, both in tickets sold and ratings on HBO.
Golovkin doing solid numbers isn’t a surprise, and yet his success with this promotion has exceeded expectations, which leads to the question of what makes this event so much more monumental in fan’s eyes?
It could be the matchup because Lemieux represents a significant step up in competition, not to mention he holds a title and unification bouts are just better in every way. The success could be a representation of Golovkin’s star growing. Triple G has proved to be a star, but everyone can get bigger and produce more, and surely he is a fighter on the rise.
However, Loeffler believes the impact is due to the oldest trick in show biz: leave them wanting more. And that’s just what K2 did with Golovkin by bringing him back to the Big Apple after several fights away from the greatest city on the planet.
“I think everyone’s responded. The New York fans, MSG, they really wanted Gennady back here, and it’s all come together. We figured the ticket sales would be very strong, we never anticipated it’d be that strong in the first week.”
Loeffler attributes the rise in expectations to the demand and the “anticipation” of Golovkin returning to the East Coast. That is an important factor here, and it must be remembered that Golovkin is receiving his adulation from the Mecca and not just packing a bunch of fans from Yonkers into a gymnasium.
This isn’t to downplay local fan favorites in the East, but Golovkin is resonating with the heart of NYC, and all I’m saying is there is a huge difference.
