Canelo vs Khan 2016: Oscar De La Hoya predicts 1 million PPV buys for surprise bout

Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya has said he is convinced his masterful surprise of setting up Canelo vs Khan for 2016 will be better than WBC middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez’s previous bout against Miguel Cotto in terms of pay-per-view (PPV) earnings.

“It is a mega-event that nobody expected and it took the world by surprise and this fight is making news all over the world, and will be more than Cotto-Canelo [one million],” De La Hoya told ESPN Deportes. “That’s our big hope, and that indicates Canelo is a superstar. It is my duty as a promoter to present the public with the biggest fights. I thought Amir Khan was the perfect fight.”

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Golden Boy Promotions was able to earn a decent 900,000 PPV buys in Alvarez’s previous bout against Cotto in November last year. While Khan is not exactly the most popular opponent for Alvarez, the Bolton welterweight’s fan-base in UK, plus Canelo’s Mexican fans, could be enough to generate 1 million PPV buys.

Meanwhile, Khan is oozing with confidence ahead of his bout against Alvarez on May 7 at the 20,000-seater T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Despite the huge discrepancy in size and weight, the British fighter claims there would be no problems moving up to the middleweight and fighting Canelo at a catchweight of 155 pounds.

Khan has never fought at 155 pounds in his entire professional boxing career. The heaviest he got was in 2014 against Luis Collazo and Devon Alexander. Alvarez, on the other hand, has been fighting at 155 in all past four bouts, but the intriguing part is that he rehydrates up to more than 170 pounds during fight nights.

"Come fight night I will probably be about 165 as well,” Khan told Sky Sports. “I can see Alvarez maybe being even a little heavier than that, maybe going into the ring at 170, but we know what we need to do.”