The PPV numbers for Gervonta Davis' June 15 fight against Frank Martin have been released, and they're not particularly impressive.
Dan Rafael reports that attendance for the Tank vs. Martin fight was between 325,000 and 350,000, which is significantly lower than the 1.2 million that was drawn for the Gervonta vs. Ryan Garcia fight last year on April 22, 2022.
Tank saw a spike in purchase rates thanks to Ryan, but with him gone, the numbers have gone back to their previous low numbers.
Martin: Wrong matchup
Tank has never really garnered much attention in his career and using an inactive Frank Martin as his opponent was a bad idea, so it was expected that Tank's performance would drop significantly compared to his pre-PPV numbers.
Martin hadn't fought in a year, barely beating Artyom Harutyunyan in his last bout, and Tank's management may have been fooled by the success of his fight with Ryan and mistakenly thought these numbers were due to his growing popularity, rather than fans wanting to see Kingly.
Selecting Martin was doomed to fail, but surprisingly Tank didn't argue with the idea.
Receiving Kingly's blessings
The significantly reduced attendance for Tank vs. Frank Martin (18-1, 12 KOs) strongly suggests that the Baltimore native capitalized on Ryan's immense popularity on social media last year to ride Ryan's coattails.
Tank capitalized on Kingly's popularity as Ryan has 12 million followers on Instagram. After that match, Tank's pre-PPV numbers went back down, and his poor performance against Martin backs that up.
Tank's PPV History
– Frank Martin: 325-350K
– Ryan Garcia: 1.2 million
– Hector Garcia: 200-250K
– Rolando Lory Romero: 275K
– Isaac “Pitbull” Cruz: 200,000
– Mario Barrios: 210-215K
– Leo Santa Cruz: 200-225K
Tank’s performance against Martin shows that he can’t expect fans to want to see his fights, which are basically easy, so Ryan or another popular fighter will be needed.
There have been too many sweet fights in the past when Mayweather Promotions promoted Tank, they pitted him against opponents that failed to boost his star potential, and his current popularity is despite that matchmaking.
If Tank wants to enjoy a million buyout rate against Ryan Garcia, he's going to need to bring him back.
