Saturday’s marquee fight in boxing is one I have been looking forward to for quite some time, as undefeated champion Errol Spence Jr. faces undefeated champion Mikey Garcia. It’s an absolutely terrific fight between two of the very best talents in boxing today, and a great test for both men. It’s also going to absolutely bomb. Because for all my excitement about this as a boxing match, there are equal parts frustration about it as a business move. That’s because PBC made the decision to air this as a PPV. And not only that, but to charge $74.95 for it. Pay-per-view has historically been a major part of boxing’s business model, with the biggest fights taking place there. And it’s been a great success at many times. For a number of years now, that boxing PPV landscape has been dominated by three names - Floyd Mayweather, Manny Pacquiao, and (to a lesser extent) Canelo Alvarez. There’s much hand-wringing regularly done about how “PPV is dead” and boxing’s business model is failing, but that’s simply not true. In 2015, Mayweather vs. Pacquiao pulled in a record smashing 4.6 million buys. In 2017, Mayweather came close to beating his own record with 4.3 million for his fight against Conor McGregor. Mayweather vs. Canelo in 2013 did 2.2 million, and both Canelo vs. GGG fights topped 1 million. There’s clearly still room in the market for big PPV events. But if you remove the names Mayweather, Pacquiao, and Canelo, a look at recent boxing PPVs suddenly becomes considerably more bleak. Here’s a listing of all US PPV fights outside of those three from the past 10 years with their buys: 4/3/10 - Roy Jones Jr. vs. Bernard Hopkins II (150,000) 12/3/11 - Miguel Cotto vs. Antonio Margarito II (600,000) 9/15/12 - Sergio Martinez vs. Julio Cesar Chavez, Jr. (475,000) 10/12/13 - Timothy Bradley vs. Juan Manuel Marquez (375,000) 6/7/14 - Miguel Cotto vs. Sergio Martinez (315,000) 10/17/15 - Gennady Golovkin vs. David Lemieux (150,000) 7/23/16 - Terence Crawford vs. Viktor Postol (55,000) 11/19/16 - Sergey Kovalev vs. Andre Ward (165,000) 3/18/17 - Gennady Golovkin vs. Daniel Jacobs (170,000) 6/17/17 - Sergey Kovalev vs. Andre Ward II (130,000) 12/1/18 - Deontay Wilder vs. Tyson Fury (325,000) That’s 11 fights total, averaging out to a pretty unimpressive 265,000 buys each. The numbers get even worse if you just focus on the most recent years. Draw a line between the 315,000 buys for Cotto vs. Martinez in 2014, and the absolutely dreadful 150,000 buys for GGG vs. Lemieux in 2015 and you see two clearly distinct sets of data. From 2010-2014 you have one bomb in Jones vs. Hopkins, but the rest performing at 300K or above, including a very impressive 600K for Cotto vs. Margarito. From 2015-today you have six fights, with only one getting above 200,000. The average for this six is an embarrassing 166,000. Which brings us back to Spence vs. Garcia. Because for as great of a fight that it is (and, to be clear, it’s a great fight), it does feature two fighters with virtually no widespread name recognition. You could look at the pretty good December number for Wilder vs. Fury and say there’s momentum here, but Heavyweights will always draw, and both Wilder and Fury have a certain fan base. Sadly, Spence and Garcia are closer in name recognition to Crawford and Postol than they are to Wilder and Fury. Add in the wildly expensive price tag, and the chances of this doing sub-100,000 buys are pretty large. The big winner out of this event could end up being DAZN. The subscription service has made a significant advertising push of the idea that they are an alternative to PPV. Much of that push has centered around the crown jewel of their programming: Canelo Alvarez. And if the stars all line up, it’s entirely possible they end up with both GGG and Wilder under their banner soon, which would give them basically everyone who has drawn well on US PPV in the past 5 years and is not named Floyd Mayweather. If they close those deals, and if they continue to present big fights not on PPV, it could indeed mean serious trouble for the PPV business. Of course, there’s a very big “if” in there. “If” DAZN stays off of PPV. Yes, that’s their big model right now. But it was also PBC’s big model when they came out. And here we are, looking at a PBC PPV that no one wants to buy. It’s easy to tell fans that the latest Demetrius Andrade fight won’t be on PPV. It becomes much harder to book Canelo vs. GGG III, look at those million buys they previously generated, and decide to make that one available for a $9.99 subscription. But the model is there. For years, one of the top PPV performers across the board was WrestleMania. Then, a few years back, WWE unveiled their Network where, for a $9.99 price tag you could get a huge library of content and all PPVs for free, WrestleMania included. Buys for the big show have, of course, plummeted, but the model has worked for them regardless. This weekend, PBC will surely see abysmal numbers, but without that subscription revenue to offset it. What steps they take in response, and what response that prompts from their competition at DAZN, will reveal much about the future of boxing’s business side. Hopefully that’s a future that doesn’t cost $74.95<doc-sep>In the end, it wasn't so much about the size difference between Errol Spence Jr. and Mikey Garcia on Saturday in their welterweight title pay-per-view bout as much it was about the skills. Spence (25-0, 21 KOs) made the fourth defense of his IBF welterweight title with a dominant unanimous decision win in front of 47,525 fans at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, that went a long way in building his case among the pound-for-pound best in the sport. Behind a powerful jab and a clinical effort outboxing the four-division champion Garcia (39-1, 30 KOs), who was making the move up from 135 pounds, Spence took home wide scores of 120-107 and 120-108 (twice). CBS Sports also had it 120-108 for the native of nearby Desoto, just outside of Dallas. How dominant was the 29-year-old Spence in preventing Garcia from ever truly being in the fight? He outlanded Garcia by a margin of 345 to 75, according to CompuBox. Spence also landed 51 percent of his power shots and limited Garcia to just 18.5 percent landed overall. "From the whole training camp, the experts like Sugar Ray Leonard felt like [Garcia] was too smart and I couldn't box [with him,]" Spence said. "You saw today I could box and move my head and do all that if I want to. "The game is to be smart, it's a sweet science. I had the size advantage and my reach. Why not use my jab and take something away from him that he likes to do which is use his jab too?" While Spence's power advantage certainly played a role in disciplining Garcia away from taking reckless chances, it was his mastery of distance behind a four-inch reach advantage that won him the fight. subscribe to In This Corner with Brian Campbell for top-notch boxing coverage each week. Spence limited Garcia to just 18 jabs landed overall and never more than five in a single round. Even though the 32-year-old Garcia deserves plenty of respect for his chin in being able to go the distance and extend Spence to the 12th round for the first time in his career, he was never able to put together more than one punch at a time. "All the credit to Errol Spence, he's a great champion," Garcia said. "He is the truth. He's for real. He put up a great fight and executed the game plan so well. He kept the distance at his favor. I wasn't able to really get my rhythm going. He did what he had to do; his reach, his height and the southpaw stance complicated things. I was trying to make adjustments but he was able to keep executing in his favor. "He has power in the welterweight division, definitely. He is probably the strongest and has a lot of knockouts. But I was able to hold my own and felt good and felt strong. But he does have power." Spence turned a tactical start to the fight into his personal showcase of just how well-rounded he can be. He boxed from the outside with a quick jab that he used as a weapon and worked behind feints to potshot Garcia to the body. Spence also pawed with his jab at times as a disguise for the left cross that came behind it. The totality of punches systematically broke Garcia down. By Round 6, Spence visibly hurt Garcia with a left uppercut. But it was Round 9 where the size difference between the two looked the most evident as Spence showed off his impressive in-fighting abilities by battering Garcia from one end of the ring to the other with clean power shots. After the round, Garcia's older brother and trainer Robert threatened to stop the fight. Garcia ultimately begged for and received one more round and came back with a more aggressive start to Round 10 that ultimately failed to blossom into anything more as Garcia relied on his defense and chin to go the distance. "Look, my brother wanted to maybe stop the fight and doesn't want to let me get hit as much anymore," Garcia said. "I told him after Round 9 that I was fine. I tried and landed some good shots but it just wasn't enough. [Spence] could take a good punch. He probably felt the power but it just wasn't enough. "We just went 12 rounds with a great welterweight champion. Me being a lightweight, that's respectful and I'm proud at what I was able to do. I don't know if I will stay at welterweight. I will probably come down to the lighter divisions." Spence, who credited Garcia's toughness and willingness to fight him when the remainder of welterweight stars (including WBC champion Shawn Porter, whom he called out) did their best to avoid him, turned his attention to what's next immediately after the fight. He called current WBA secondary titleholder Manny Pacquiao up into the ring and challenged him to a fight. "[Pacquiao] has been here before [at AT&T Stadium] and broke records here before," Spence said. "He's a legend of the sport and it would be an honor to fight him next." The 40-year-old Pacquiao, who is fresh off a decision win over Adrien Broner on PPV, accepted the challenge, albeit it in a tone that wasn't completely convincing. "Yeah, why not," Pacquiao said. "We can give the fans a good fight. I'm so happy to be here in Dallas and I'm hoping that I will be back here soon." CBS Sports was with you for every punch from the bout in Dallas with our updating scorecard and live updates below. If you are having trouble viewing the results or want to refresh the scorecard, please click here. Spence vs. Garcia card, results Errol Spence Jr. (c) def. Mikey Garcia via unanimous decision (120-107, 120-108, 120-108) David Benavidez def. J'Leon Love via second-round TKO Luis Nery def. McJoe Arroyo via fourth-round TKO (corner stoppage) Chris Arreola def. Jean Pierre Augustin via third-round TKO Spence vs. Garcia scorecard, live coverage Round 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Total Spence 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 120 Garcia 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 108 Thanks for stopping by.<doc-sep>Errol Spence calls Manny Pacquiao over after the decision and Spence says he wants to fight him in his next fight. Decision: All three judges give every round to Spence in a dominating performance to retain his welterweight title. One judge scored it 120-107 and the other two had it 120-108. Round 12: Garcia is just trying to survive this round and take the unanimous decision loss as a morale victory. According to Fox the punches landed is 319-67 through 11 rounds. A very clear, dominating win by Spence. Uneventful round as both fighters seems comfortable going to the judges. An overall boring fight and it went as most thought with the bigger man dominating the smaller one. Spence is really hitting Garcia now with less than a minute. Garcia stays upright and gets shutout. Spence dominates. LA Times Card: 10-9 Spence. Spence 120-108. Advertisement Round 11: Robert Garcia lets him go out again after Mikey Garcia asks to go back out. Valiant effort by Garcia and he is looking like he is trying to just finish the fight. Another strong combination by Spence and this is looking like it might not go the distance. Garcia is getting punished. Heart is the only thing that is going to get Garcia through this. You just hope Garcia doesn’t take too much punishment here. Garcia gets through the round, but Spence is at target practice. LA Times Card: 10-9 Spence. Spence leads 110-99. Round 10: Spence is looking strong here and according to the Fox telecast, Garcia’s trainer and brother Robert said in the corner that this would be the last round if Garcia didn’t show him something. Nothing yet from Garcia and he is just eating Spence’s punches. Great performance from Spence and Garcia is just facing a bigger man. Good exchange in the last minute, but it’s all Spence. LA Times Card: 10-9 Spence. Spence leads 100-90. Round 9: Spence is tracking Garcia now he is starting to look like he has taken a lot of punishment. Strong left by Spence followed by an uppercut gets the crowd on their feet. Spence has Garcia on the run this is the beginning of the end for Garcia. A dominating effort by Spence. LA Times Card: 10-9 Spence. Spence leads 90-81. Round 8: More active start to the round with a nice exchange of combinations in the middle of the ring. Spence is working the jab really well and it is bothering Garcia. Spence lands a good combination and seems to be heading downhill to a victory. Garcia just can’t get close enough to Spence to hurt him. Nice left by Spence at the end of the round gives him another one. LA Times Card: 10-9 Spence. Spence leads 80-72. Advertisement Round 7: Cautious first minute of the seventh round. The least amount of action since the first round. Both fighters might be getting a bit winded at this point. Closer round but it goes to Spence. LA Times Card: 10-9 Spence. Spence leads 70-63. Round 6: It seems like it’ll be a difficult path to victory for Garcia. Spence is dominating the fight and Garcia has yet to hurt him. Nice combinations in the center of the ring. Spence is piling it on right now. A nice left-right combination by Spence draws some reaction from the crowd. A nice right hook by Spence wakes Garcia up and he responds with a nice combination. Garcia needs more of that. Spence continues his shutout, although Garcia had his moments. LA Times Card: 10-9 Spence. Spence leads 60-54. Advertisement Round 5: Garcia’s corner told him to start backing Spence up and that is exactly what he is doing. The best action from Garcia to start the round and it looks like he is going to go for it now. Wild miss by Spence with a left hook. Spence is back in charge of the round by mixing up his punches. Spence has evaded several of Garcia’s more powerful punches. Good start by Garcia, but Spence finishes strong and takes the round. LA Times Card: 10-9 Spence. Spence leads 50-45. Round 4: A steady stream of jabs from Spence opens the round and he looks like he is taking control of the fight. Garcia just hasn’t done much. A good combination at the 1:30 mark by Spence and this round has seen the most action so far. They are mixing it up much more. This should be where the fight gets good. Spence’s jab is really a problem for Garcia and his reach is keeping him on the outside. Two good lefts by Spence to close the round and this is the most clear round of the fight for Spence. LA Times Card: 10-9 Spence. Spence leads 40-36. Advertisement Round 3: Some boos in the crowd as there has been very little action. Another minute of very little punches landed. Spence is trying to work the body a bit more with his combinations and he catches Garcia with a left that is probably the best punch landed in the fight. Spence wins another round with two good power punches landed. LA Times Card: 10-9 Spence. Spence leads 30-27. Round 2: Garcia still being very cautious and it is looking a lot like the first round. Spence is more active and trying to establish the jab. Crowd has had nothing to get excited about yet after the first two minutes of the second round. Garcia is finally starting to wake up a bit by throwing his left hook. Little better action in the final minute of the round although Spence is still landing more punches. Close round goes to Spence again, but it can go either way LA Times Card: 10-9 Spence. Spence leads 20-18. Advertisement Round 1: Spence starts out with some jabs in a cautious start to the fight. Not much action in the first minute of the first but Spence has been a bit more active. Spence does look like the bigger man and should be using his reach advantage as the fight goes on. Spence wins the first simply by landing a couple more punches. Garcia only landed punches in the single digits. LA Times Card: 10-9 Spence. 8:38 p.m.: Big cheers for both fighters as they were introduced. The biggest fight of the year so far is getting ready to start. Buckle up. 8:35 p.m.: Spence is in the ring and he gives a hug to Floyd Mayweather. Crowd is buzzing as Jimmy Lennox Jr. makes the official introductions. Advertisement 8:33 p.m.: The Lancaster High School marching band is leading Spence in. This must be a special moment for the Dallas kid. Interestingly, Spence is wearing a green, red and white robe, looking very much like a Mexican flag. 8:31 p.m.: LIghts go out for Spence as he prepares for his ringwalk in his home town. One slight correction, Garcia didn’t have a belt over his shoulder, just a shirt that mimicked a championship belt. 8:30 p.m.: Garcia enters first with his trademark cowboy hat and a championship belt slung over his shoulder. He is led in by a banda band. 8: 25 p.m.: The lights have been turned off at AT&T Stadium and the promotional videos have begun. We should expect to see the fighters in the ring within the next five minutes. Advertisement 8:20 p,m,: Lots os big-name fighters at the fight. One of them is Manny Pacquaio, who is being interviewed on Fox and says that he would like to face the winner of this Spence vs. Garcia match. 8:15 p.m.: The announced attendance at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas is just over 47,000 people. A really great number for this fight. Will be interesting to see what the pay-per-view numbers show. 8:10 p.m.: The undercard fights are done and now we wait for the main event between Mikey Garcia and Errol Spence. My guess is the fight goes off a little past 8:30 p.m. but nothing official yet. 8:02 p.m.: David Benavidez sought a fresh start following a turbulent year, and the best way to bring that to reality was with heavy punches. Advertisement<doc-sep>
On Saturday night, March 16, Errol Spence Jr. dominated Mikey Garcia from start to finish before an announced crowd of 47,525 at The Jerry Jones Pleasure Palace a/k/a AT&T Stadium (home of the Dallas Cowboys) in Arlington, Texas. Spence, 29, has now fashioned a 25-0 (21 KOs) ring record. He won the IBF 147-pound crown with an 11th-round stoppage of Kell Brook in 2017 and successfully defended it against a faded Lamont Peterson and no-hoper Carlos Ocampo last year. As Tris Dixon wrote recently, “He is meticulous yet aggressive, clinical but watchable. He’s patient but forceful. He remembers to work the body and also dazzles with shots upstairs. As with any true talent, the exciting part is seeing what happens when they match up against someone of similar ability.” The 31-year-old Garcia (who entered the ring to face Spence with a 39-0, 30 KOs ledger) won the WBO 126-pound title by technical decision over Orlando Salido in 2013. Next, he seized the 130-pound WBO belt with an eighth-round stoppage of Roman Martinez. Two more belts, courtesy of Sergey Lipinets (IBF 140) and Robert Easter (IBF 135) followed. A unanimous-decision triumph over Adrien Broner at a contract weight of 140 pounds was also in the mix. Join DAZN and watch more than 100 fight nights a year Spence was a curious choice of opponents for Garcia, given the disparity in size between them. Garcia began the year as a contractual free agent. He was free to work with any promoter. "If Mikey wants to be bold and prove how he’s a fighter for all time," Frank Lotierzo wrote, "he’d holler from the mountaintop for Lomachenko, stating how he wants to be remembered for beating him when Vasyl was at his best. But no, he seeks a fight where he’ll be praised for just showing up." Even Spence seemed dubious about engaging with Garcia, acknowledging during a March 8 teleconference call. "At first, I didn't really care too much for fighting him. But it got to a point where he started talking a lot more and a lot of other welterweights like Shawn Porter, Keith Thurman and Danny Garcia, they all had their dates. Manny Pacquiao, too. Then, when I found that I could be fighting at AT&T Stadium, it just made sense." Asked for more regarding the merits of the matchup against Garcia, Spence sounded almost apologetic, saying, "I'm not the bully here. Mikey really pushed for the fight. People who say that he doesn't stand a chance; I feel like they don't really know anything about boxing or don't know the history of boxing. He does have a lot of skills and he's fundamentally sound. So he definitely has a chance. I mean, everybody has a chance." The promotion was built on platitudes like "dare to be great." Garcia took the lead, telling various media outlets, "I need this fight. I need a marquee name. I want to beat great champions. ... He's the best right now in the division. I want to make a statement. I want to make a mark. ... I want to be the best fighter on the planet, the pound-for-pound No. 1. I want people to talk about the things that I did inside a boxing ring long after my career is over. Taking on Errol Spence gives me the chance to get everything I ever wanted in one night." MORE: Spence calls out Pacquiao after dominating Garcia Promoter Richard Schaefer predicted that the fight could do as many as one million pay-per-view buys, which everyone (including Schaefer) understood was multiples off the mark. Bart Barry summed up the reality of the situation with a pre-fight analysis that read, "Garcia now shoots at the moon, bounding up a couple of weight classes and fighting one of the world’s two best welterweights. What will happen in Arlington? What we think will happen. Two of this generation’s best fighters in an unsatisfying handicap match." That was in accord with the view of the betting public which made Spence an almost 4-to-1 favorite. Garcia talked the talk before the fight: — "People say Errol is bigger. That's just obvious. But there's a lot more that goes into this sport and who's going to win this particular fight." — "It's the subtle little moves that make the difference inside the ring. I'm always one step ahead. Opponents don't see that on video. When they get in the ring, they realize it's a whole different experience.