The Scorecard shows majority decision that gave Canelo the middleweight championship.
Boxing 

Boxing’s Uber Events Part of Las Vegas’ Evolving Sports Market As Canelo Defeats GGG

Alan Snel ,

By ALAN SNEL

LVSportsBiz.com

 

Long before the Vegas Golden Knights showed up and the Oakland Raiders decided to move to Las Vegas, the town served as the world’s boxing capital from the 1970s through the 1990s, hosting everything from monster bouts like Sugar Ray Leonard-Marvin Hagler at Caesar Palace to smaller, bread-and-butter bouts.

 

Las Vegas and boxing have a rich history. But as Las Vegas’ sports market evolves into a town hosting major league sports teams and other pro teams, the tenor of the major boxing matches has changed with the times.

 

Case in point: Saul “Canelo” Alvarez’s majority decision over rival Gennady “GGG” Golovkin at T-Mobile Arena to claim the world middleweight championship Saturday night. Attendance was 21,965 — slightly less than the crowd size for the first fight at T-Mobile Arena between the two middleweights a year ago.

 

The bouts have morphed into uber sports events. There was the so-called fight of the century of Floyd Mayweather, J. vs. Manny Pacquiao on May 2, 2015 (which was panned for being a snoozer but still the biggest gate revenue generator for a boxing match in Nevada history); the Mayweather-Conor McGregor crossover boxing match/circus act on Aug. 26, 2017 ( Mayweather toyed with the MMA fighter abd the “match” generated the second biggest gate revenue in state history) and now a possible Mayweather-Pacquiao 2, announced by “Money” Mayweather on the eve of the Canelo-GGG slugfest.

Here comes Saul “Canelo” Alvarez.

 

Even the Alvarez-Golovkin rematch has morphed into a monster event, attracting tourists from Australia to Mexico who traveled to Las Vegas for this uber boxing event at T-Mobile Arena.

A Triple G fan from Mexico.

 

And the celebrities piled in, too:  Charles Barkley, Dave Chappelle, George Lopez, LeBron James, Mike Tyson, Rosie Perez and Will Smith, who also enjoy big UFC fights, too.

 

LVSportsBiz.com chatted with noted longtime boxing writer Kevin Iole, who writes for Yahoo Sports, about the role of boxing in Las Vegas’ evolving sports market. Iole talked about the advent of the “uber” boxing event, such as Saturday’s Canelo-GGG bout.

 

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The crowd was a sellout earlier in the week. This belt is now Canelo’s.

 

 

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Follow LVSportsBiz.com on Twitter, facebook and Instagram. Contact LVSportsBiz.com founder/writer Alan Snel at asnel@LVSportsBiz.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alan Snel

Alan Snel brings decades of sports-business reporting experience to LVSportsBiz.com. Snel covered the business side of sports for the South Florida (Fort Lauderdale) Sun-Sentinel, the Tampa Tribune and Las Vegas Review-Journal. As a city hall beat reporter, Snel also covered stadium deals in Denver and Seattle. In 2000, Snel launched a sport-business website for FoxSports.com called FoxSportsBiz.com. After reporting sports-business for the RJ, Snel wrote hard-hitting stories on the Raiders stadium for the Desert Companion magazine in Las Vegas and The Nevada Independent. Snel is also one of the top bicycle advocates in the country.

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