Middleweight champion Canelo Alvarez's spectacular one-punch, sixth-round knockout win over Amir Khan on Saturday night drew "around" 600,000 pay-per-view buys, Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya told ESPN.com on Wednesday.
De La Hoya's figure comes after consultation with HBO PPV, which produced and distributed the fight -- it was the main event of the first boxing card to take place at the new $375 million T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
The numbers are far from final. They are based largely on specific numbers De La Hoya and HBO have received from the satellite services, which were then compared historically with similar fights to estimate figures from cable systems around the country. Those systems have yet to report solid numbers.
"It looks like it will be around 600,000 buys," De La Hoya said. "We're extremely happy about it. If you think about it, Canelo has had the top two pay-per-views of the last four [major] pay-per-views."
Alvarez's middleweight title victory against Miguel Cotto in November generated 900,000 buys. Manny Pacquiao's supposed farewell fight against Timothy Bradley Jr. on April 9 and Floyd Mayweather's supposed farewell against Andre Berto in September both generated in the range of 400,000 to 450,000 buys.
"It's the changing of the guard," De La Hoya said about Alvarez, the 25-year-old Mexican star many view as the face of boxing in the post Mayweather/Pacquiao era.
De La Hoya referred to one media report that did not cite a source and claimed the fight had only 460,000 buys as "totally absurd."
"The fight did way more than that," he said. "We know that for a fact. The numbers are still coming in, and it could be over or a little under, but it will be around 600,000."
At 600,000 buys, the Alvarez-Khan fight would gross more than $30 million in pay-per-view revenue, although nearly half goes to the cable and satellite providers.
De La Hoya said the business Alvarez did against Khan, a smaller fighter moving up two weight classes and a heavy underdog, shows Alvarez has the star power to carry boxing into the future.
"The future is that the sky's the limit for Canelo," De La Hoya said. "He is on his way to breaking Floyd's pay-per-view records. We are extremely proud of the work we have done at Golden Boy Promotions, but when you have a special product like Canelo, the sky is the limit. And Amir did his part. A lot of people were saying it wouldn't be a good fight, but Amir and Canelo both came to fight, both gave everything they had, and it was a good, exciting fight, and people got their money's worth."
The fight was Alvarez's fifth as a pay-per-view headliner. He also headlined against Cotto; against Mayweather in a 2013 loss that sold 2.2 million pay-per-views, third all time, and set the pay-per-view revenue record of $150 million until it was broken last year by Mayweather-Pacquiao. Alvarez also headlined against Erislandy Lara and Alfredo Angulo in 2014, each of which generated more than 300,000 buys apiece.
Now the boxing world is looking forward to a September showdown between Alvarez (47-1-1, 33 KOs) and Gennady Golovkin (35-0, 32 KOs), who holds two middleweight world titles and is also Alvarez's mandatory challenger by virtue of the interim belt he holds.
De La Hoya and Golovkin promoter Tom Loeffler of K2 Promotions have been discussing the fight this week. They are in the midst of the 15-day window to negotiate freely for a fight that could take place at AT&T Stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys, in Arlington, Texas. If they don't make a deal, the WBC will order a purse bid on May 24.
"Like I promised at the [post-fight] press conference, I called Loeffler on Sunday, and we're going to continue talks," De La Hoya said. "We will continue our conversations and see what we come up with. But Canelo will fight in September. We just opened up the conversations. Loffler respects the fact that Canelo just got home to Guadalajara and will take a few days off. But I know we're under the gun with the WBC situation."
But will the fight happen?
"Canelo wants to break records," De La Hoya said. "He wants to be a legend. He wants to take risks. He wants to dare to be great."
HBO will replay Alvarez-Khan on Saturday (10 p.m. ET).