On September 15, WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. will finally put his title on the line against its rightful owner, middleweight king Sergio "Maravilla" Martinez. It's a fight that fans have been waiting for ever since the title was taken from Martinez when the WBC elevated his status to "Champion Emeritus" and declared Sebastian Zbik their new champion. Not long afterwards, Chavez Jr. would capture the title from Zbik before embarking on a journey that would see him successfully defend his title three times against the likes of Peter Manfredo Jr., Marco Antonio Rubio, and Andy Lee.
Throughout that time, Martinez was persistent in his quest to get Chavez Jr. in the ring in hopes of reclaiming the title that was wrongfully taken from him. Unfortunately, time and time again, the fight was put on the backburner, as the WBC continuosly allowed Chavez Jr. to defend his title against lesser competition. Arum would later admit that it was his plan all along to postpone a bout with Martinez, in order to protect Chavez Jr. from a fight that, in his opinion, he was ready for. Apparently, those title defenses did well to boost the confidence of Chavez Jr. and, according to both he and his promoter, he is now ready to silence the critics by looking spectacular in what he hopes will be a lopsided beatdown of Martinez.
Now that the 4-city press tour is coming to an end in Chavez Jr.'s native Mexico, Arum is more confident than ever that this bout will live up to the bold prediction of Martinez's advisor, Sampson Lewkowicz, who virtually guarnateed more than 1 million pay-per-view buys for the event. "I mean, Chavez-Martinez is, by far and away, the biggest fight of the year so far. There's no argument. It's bigger than Pacquiao and Bradley, because everybody figured that Pacquiao and Bradley wasn't that competitive and the odds reflected that," Arum explained to a group of reporters. "But this is a competitive fight that has been building for a long time. And it's reflected in the fact that we [opened] ticket sales [Thursday] at noon Vegas time, but we sold thousands of tickets in advance."
The question is, is Arum right? Is this really the biggest fight of the year so far? If it is, will it surpass the 1.5 million PPV buys generated by Mayweather vs. Cotto? That notion seems highly unlikely. That being said, will it even approach the 850,000 PPV buys achieved by Pacquiao vs. Bradley (give or take 100,000 depending on who you ask since no official numbers were ever reported)? Personally, I'd be extremely suprised if it even did that much. After all, we're talking about one fighter, Martinez, who has never even headlined a pay-per-view, and another fighter, Chavez Jr., who has only appeared on smaller, independently produced pay-per-view events that were considered a profitable success if they did 90,000 buys. The leap from 100,000 buys to 850,000 buys with that combination of fighters seems like a tall order, especially when you consider that a highly-anticipated rematch between Puerto Rican superstar Miguel Cotto, the third biggest pay-per-view draw in the sport, and Mexican bad guy Antonio Margarito did roughly 600,000 PPV buys. Not to mention, the Golden Boy Promotions quadrupleheader card, being televised on the same night and headlined by Saul "Canelo" Alvarez vs. Josesito Lopez, is sure to have an impact on the event.
So I ask again, is Arum right? Will this truly be the biggest fight of the year? Bigger than Mayweather vs. Cotto? Bigger than Pacquiao vs. Bradley? After September 15th, I can't wait to find out...assuming, of course, were actually told those PPV numbers.
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