More than 70,000 spectators will witness oversized fight but smallest margins will decide outcome
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as Vegas has staged its share of blockbuster fight nights but nothing on the scale of what is coming this weekend. On Saturday night at Allegiant Stadium, the $2bn (£1.47bn) home of the NFL’s Raiders, Saúl “Canelo” Álvarez will defend his undisputed super-middleweight crown against Terence Crawford in front of more than 70,000 spectators, by far the largest boxing crowd the city has ever seen.
Millions more will watch on Netflix, which is carrying the card at no extra cost to subscribers – a first for a fight of this magnitude and a reminder of how the business of boxing is being remade in real time. For decades, the sport depended on pay-per-view. Now it is betting that reach and spectacle can replace a buckling model. The timing is no accident: Mexican Independence Day weekend, when this neon-lit metropolis in the Mojave desert becomes a second home for Álvarez and his flag-draped supporters.
Yet, for a main event of this quality and consequence, the mood around town during fight week has been oddly sedate. Thursday’s final press conference at the T-Mobile Arena was open to the public but drew little more than a thousand fans. It’s expected the crowds will arrive en masse on Friday and the live gate will be eye-watering in the end, but ticket sales have been on the sluggish side, prompting whispers of the Trump slump that has affected local tourism. The likelier theory is that while most of boxing’s more recent super-fights have required years of wrangling – Mayweather v Pacquiao, Álvarez v Golovkin, Crawford v Spence – this one materialized practically overnight. A year ago, Álvarez v Crawford was more a bar-room flight of fancy than plausible matchup given the weight gulf. Now, suddenly, here it is.
