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Is Anthony Joshua Becoming the New Cash Cow in the Sport of Boxing?

By Joshua “City” Brewer

It has been widely reported that world heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua, 20-0, 20 KO’s, has already sold 70,000 plus tickets for his upcoming unification fight with New Zealand’s Joseph Parker, 24-0, 18 KO’s. The fight will take place at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium on March 31, 2018. These staggering numbers are starting to look they are a norm for Joshua.

In 2017, Joshua beat longtime heavyweight kingpin Wladimir Klitschko in excellent, crowd pleasing fashion. 90,000 plus fans packed Wembley Stadium to see this matchup. Of course, it wasn’t all Joshua because Klitschko did bring plenty to the table given that he was a popular fighter throughout Europe.

Then, Joshua was scheduled to take on Kubrat Pulev later in 2017, and Pulev got hurt a few weeks out and had to be replaced by Carlos Takam. The fight had already drawn a ton of interest and ultimately ended up selling 70,000 plus because of the fact that Joshua is a superstar across the pond.

This poses the question as to whether or not Joshua is the new ‘cash cow’ of boxing? In what will be less than a year when Joshua and Parker face off, Joshua will have been involved in three fights that collectively sold more than 230,000 tickets. Boxing is one of the two premier sports along with soccer in the U.K. It seems that Joshua could pretty much fight anyone and sell a ton of tickets.

The only rival at this point as far as sale is Canelo Alvarez. Canelo was able to sell over 60,000 tickets in his matchup with Liam Smith in 2016. There are few things a play when it comes to Canelo, for instance the majority of his biggest fights take place at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. This location only seats about 17,000. When Canelo has fought in other locations he’s proved that he can draw. He’s also the more known commodity in comparison to Joshua who really started to put up major numbers in 2017.

Recently retired Floyd Mayweather, JR. was the ‘cash cow” for a long period over the last several years. His fights typically took place in Las Vegas, NV, as well as it’s also his residence. This makes one wonder whether Mayweather, JR. would have sold tickets close to these numbers had he branched out? The amount of money Mayweather, JR. was able to generate was also a primary reason he fought in Las Vegas.

Manny Pacquiao is also another fighter who is a major worldwide draw, even more so when he was in his prime. He’s also fought in different countries to include Australia, and China. Joshua has yet to take his talents on the road as far as fighting outside of the U.K. That said, he honestly doesn’t have to. When you can generate the sales numbers he does, you can pretty much dictate the narrative when it comes to negotiating fight. This is and seems to be the case for Joshua. At this point, he’s only going to become more known and will likely reach a record level climax when he faces American heavyweight champion, Deontay Wilder.

Joshua seems to have the fans in mind as far as location is concerned. Some fighters have often times not had the fans in mind when it came to major fights as they knew Las Vegas casino’s would generate a major amount of money in comparison to relying on ticket sales. This, though, has essentially alienated many real, die-hard fans due to staggering ticket prices.

When Mayweather, JR. and Pacquiao fought for what was the most anticipated fight of this generation, only a small percentage of fans could afford the tickets. The majority were at prices only multi-millionaires could afford. They came out in droves. That’s now over and indications seem to point toward more fighters branching out and looking outside of only Las Vegas.

Kudos to those leading the charge…

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