Floyd Mayweather's shutout victory against Carlos Baldomir to win the world welterweight championship last Saturday night in Las Vegas generated 325,000 pay-per-view buys, HBO announced Friday.
The fight, which cost $49.95, generated $16.3 million in television revenue, but was the weakest performing of the three cards Mayweather has headlined on HBO PPV.
Both of his previous HBO PPV fights, which cost $44.95, did more business.
Mayweather's lopsided decision win against Zab Judah in April generated 374,000 buys and $16.8 million in revenue and his June 2005 destruction of Arturo Gatti to win a junior welterweight belt generated 365,000 buys and $16.5 million.
Despite the dropoff in sales, HBO put a positive spin on the total.
"We're very pleased with Mayweather's PPV performance, especially given that Baldomir had little previous exposure in the US," HBO PPV's Mark Taffet said.
Baldomir's only previous U.S. exposure came in his January upset of Judah to win the welterweight title and his July knockout of Gatti in his first defense.
Mayweather's weak number probably won't bolster his case during ongoing negotiations to fight junior middleweight titlist Oscar De La Hoya in May. De La Hoya, who has given Mayweather a Monday night deadline to accept an offer, has been a box-office star for years.
He generated a surprisingly high 925,000 buys when he beat Ricardo Mayorga in May.
Mayweather promoter Dan Goossen pointed out that when De La Hoya fought lesser-known opponents, he didn't always do big pay-per-view business. Goossen said he was pleased with Mayweather's pay-per-view performance.
"These numbers are very reflective of the numbers generated by Oscar when he did not have the well-known name challenger in the other corner, which obviously speaks volumes of Floyd's star power," Goossen said.
Mayweather-Baldomir will be replayed Saturday night before HBO's live coverage of the Wladimir Klitschko-Calvin Brock heavyweight title fight.