Gervonta Davis’s PPV Numbers for his fight against Frank Martin on June 15th have been revealed, and they are less than remarkable.
Dan Rafael reports the Tank-Martin event brought in between 325,000 and 350,000 buys, which are dramatically below the 1.2 million that Gervonta’s fight against Ryan Garcia hauled in last year on April 22, 2022.
Tank saw a surge in his buy rate thanks to Ryan, but without him, he was back to his marginal numbers of the past.
Martin: A Misguided Matchup
It was predictable that Tank would see a huge drop off to his pre-PPV numbers because he’s never been a huge draw during his career and it bad idea to use the inactive Frank Martin as his opponent.
Martin hadn’t fought in a year and barely won his last fight against Artem Harutyunyan. Tank’s management might have been fooled by the success of his fight with Ryan and mistakenly thought those numbers were attributed to an increase in popularity rather than fans wanting to see Kingry.
Choosing Martin was a move doomed to failure, and surprisingly, Tank didn’t speak up to veto the idea.
Riding on Kingry’s Coattails
The huge drop off in buys for Tank’s fight against Frank Martin (18-1, 12 KOs) strongly indicates that the Baltimore native rode on Ryan’s coattails last year, taking advantage of his tremendous popularity on social media.
With Ryan’s 12 million Instagram followers, Tank went along for the ride, taking advantage of Kingry’s popularity. After that fight, Tank returned to his pre-PPV numbers, and the lackluster numbers for the Martin fight bear that out.
Tank’s PPV History
– Frank Martin: 325-350K
– Ryan Garcia: 1.2 million
– Hector Garcia: 200-250K
– Rolando ‘Rolly’ Romero:275K
– Isaac ‘Pitbull’ Cruz: 200K
– Mario Barrios: 210-215K
– Leo Santa Cruz: 200-225K
Tank’s numbers for his fight against Martin show that he will need Ryan and other popular fighters because he can’t count on fans wanting to see his fights that are basically gimmes.
There have been too many soft matches in the past when Mayweather Promotions promoted Tank. They matched him against opposition that failed to increase his star power, and his current popularity is despite the match-making.
If Tank wants to enjoy the million buy rate from the Ryan Garcia fight, he’s going to need to bring him back.
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