It didn't feature Floyd Mayweather or Manny Pacquiao, but the fight between Canelo Alvarez and Miguel Cotto on Nov. 21 still managed to give network HBO plenty of reasons to be satisfied with the outcome.
Fifty-eight million of them, to be more specific.
Alvarez's unanimous decision victory over Puerto Rico's Cotto reeled in a whopping 900,000 pay-per-view buys and approximately $58-million in domestic pay-per-view revenue, HBO senior vice president Mark Taffet told ESPN.com's Dan Rafael.
"At 900,000 buys and $58 million in PPV revenue, Cotto-Canelo performed superbly," Taffet said. "Not since Lennox Lewis-Mike Tyson in 2002 has a pay-per-view fight generated at least 900,000 buys without featuring Floyd Mayweather, Manny Pacquiao, or Oscar De La Hoya.
"It puts an exclamation point on the biggest year in pay-per-view history. I couldn't be more thrilled for boxing, Golden Boy, Roc Nation and the fans."
It was the best pay-per-view performance by both men in a fight that didn't contain one of the aforementioned giants, and, had the much-anticipated Mayweather-Pacquiao showdown not occurred in early May, Alvarez-Cotto would've set this year's record for sales (Mayweather-Pacquiao sold 4.6 million subscriptions).
"It was an incredibly strong performance in a historical context," Taffet said.
