On the heels of this past Saturday’s Anthony Joshua-Oleksandr Usyk heavyweight championship pay-per-view fight, the PPV boxing industry is gearing up for two more heavyweight fight cards heading into the fall.
Fox Sports will deliver the September 4 PPV bout between former heavyweight champion Andy Ruiz and top contender Luis Ortiz, followed by an October 15 fight between former heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder and Robert Helenius.
Fox Sports Executive VP and head of programming Bill Wanger said that the two fight cards look to take advantage of increasing interest in the heavyweight division, which has featured several PPV events over the past four years.
Since 2018, six PPV boxing events featuring either Wilder, Ortiz or Ruiz have drawn collectively more than 2 million PPV buys, according to industry sources. The fights are led by the second bout between Wilder and current heavyweight champion Tyson Fury, which drew more than 800,000 PPV buys, according to industry sources.
Wilder is stepping into the ring in October for the first time since losing his last two fights to Fury, with the hopes of eventually regaining the heavyweight championship belts. Ortiz and Ruiz are both looking to position themselves for another shot at the title by winning their September matchup.
All three fighters are chasing the current WBO, WBA and IBF heavyweight champion Usyk – who on August 20 defeated former champion Joshua for the second straight time in the rematch of their September 2021 fight – as well as Fury, who holds the WBC title. Fury announced his retirement earlier this summer, but industry observers say a potentially lucrative unification fight against Usyk could lure him back into the ring.
Outside of the heavyweight division, the PPV boxing category is counting down to the September 17 Canelo Alvarez-Gennady Golovkin trilogy fight. The first two Alvarez-Golovkin fights in 2017 and 2018 generated a combined 2.4 million PPV buys, according to industry sources. ■
