Despite heavy pre-fight promotion from FOX Sports, Deontay Wilder’s second appearance as a pay-per-view headliner was not exactly a great one.
Wilder’s sensational seventh-round KO of Luis Ortiz failed to outperform his PPV debut against Tyson Fury last year, which did an estimated 325,000 buys. ESPN reported that Wilder-Ortiz II drew in 225,000 buys, whereas BoxingScene’s sources say it will finish just north of 275,000 buys. This also speaks to the light year it’s been for boxing pay-per-views in 2019, with no show exceeding 500,000 buys.
Of course, this has also been a year with no Floyd Mayweather or Canelo Alvarez on pay-per-view, with the latter tied to DAZN and Floyd alternating between retired and not retired at any given moment.