Mayweather-Hatton pay-per-view a smashing success

The numbers are in, and pound-for-pound king Floyd Mayweather lived up to his new self-given nickname of "Money" Mayweather.

Mayweather's 10th-round knockout of England's Ricky Hatton to retain the welterweight championship Dec. 8 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas generated a whopping 850,000 domestic pay-per-view buys and $47 million in television revenue, HBO PPV's Mark Taffet said Monday.

That makes the fight the biggest pay-per-view fight in history that did not involve Oscar De La Hoya or heavyweights Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield.

"Mayweather-Hatton was one of boxing's most memorable nights of the past decade and was the perfect ending to a resurgent year for the sport," Taffet said. "Also, in becoming the highest-grossing PPV fight ever in which neither a heavyweight nor a Latino superstar was featured, Mayweather-Hatton blazed a new trail, which opens new doors and bodes very well for the future."

Mayweather-Hatton, which generated 520,000 subscriptions from cable homes and 330,000 from satellite homes, was the second-biggest boxing pay-per-view fight of the year. But Mayweather was also half of the biggest one.

His decision victory against De La Hoya on May 5 generated numerous records, including 2.4 million PPV buys and $134 million in PPV revenue.

With a second blockbuster pay-per-view event this year, Mayweather earned about $50 million in purses.

The fight also capped a record-breaking year for HBO PPV, Taffet said. Its eight boxing events sold 4.8 million units and generated $255 million.

That breaks the 1999 record of 4 million buys and $200 million.

Dan Rafael covers boxing for ESPN.com.

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