In hindsight, paying over twice the market value for the rights to Teofimo Lopez vs George Kambosos may have been too much. In a February 25 purse bid, Triller shocked the boxing world by blowing away Top Rank and Matchroom’s bids of $2.3 and $3.5 million with a wild $6.018 million offer of its own.
Now it appears the company is realizing how much it overestimated the public’s demand for what is a pretty ordinary title defense. Kambosos is a solid fighter and a deserving mandatory, but if we’re being honest it’s difficult to imagine him posing much of a threat to dethrone Lopez. In any case, it’s not a matchup that had fans clamoring for a PPV.
Triller’s last two PPV’s were reasonably priced at $49.99 USD, which undoubtedly played some role in the success of these events. However, Triller’s website now indicates they’ll be charging $59.99 for Lopez-Kambosos, which is either another miscalculation of the value of this matchup, or a panicked move to claw back some of the money thrown away during the purse bid.
Another cause for concern here is that despite being well known in boxing circles, Teofimo Lopez doesn’t have the same kind of name recognition or ‘casual’ appeal as Mike Tyson, Roy Jones, or Jake Paul. On the other hand, this is more of an honest-to-goodness boxing event than the last two Triller PPVs, with some competitive matchups up and down the card.
None of that will likely be enough to convince many boxing fans to pay $60 for an average main event, one that happens to be scheduled for the same evening as Jermall Charlo-Montiel on Showtime, Munguia-Sulecki on DAZN, Inoue-Dasmarinas on ESPN/ESPN+, and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr-Anderson Silva on Integrated Sports PPV/FITE PPV.
For what it’s worth, the Triller website in Canada lists the Lopez-Kambosos PPV at $39.99 USD, so there may still be time to meet in the middle.