Showtime Sports recently announced it will telecast a big June 13 Deontay Wilder-Eric Molina heavyweight championship fight, but boxing fans are still talking about the mega May 2 Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao pay-per-view event Showtime co-promoted with HBO.

Showtime Sports executive vice president and general manager Stephen Espinoza discusses the record breaking PPV results of the event with Multichannel News programming editor R. Thomas Umstead. Espinoza also talks about Mayweather’s future in the ring, including a potential rematch with Pacquiao.

An edited version of the interview appears below.

MCN: Did the fight meet your PPV performance expectations?

Stephen Espinoza: It far exceeded our expectations, even what we were expecting late in the week. We were monitoring pre-buys all week but there was nothing in the ballpark to compare it to … they were so high we couldn’t use it to extrapolate any numbers. We were largely flying blind.

MCN: Were you surprised with the significant amount of day of buys for the fight despite heavy promotion to drive pre-buys?

SE: We were. One of the elements that made it hard to predict was that we did message so heavily on early buying by the viewer to avoid technical difficulties, so we weren’t sure how much of the early activity was in response to that messaging and how much was genuine overall excitement and enthusiasm for the fight. I guess our first real indication that there was a huge expansion of the audience was during the telecast itself when we starting getting some reports that some operators were experiencing technical difficulties processing the huge volume of orders that were coming in on Saturday evening. Ultimately we were able to buy some time by stalling the main event and that hopefully that allowed everything to get cleared up in time for a successful main event telecast.

MCN: Did everything go as well as expected behind the scenes?

SE: It was a tremendous amount of work by a tremendous amount of people in a very short period of time. To have not just the two networks (co-fight promoters HBO and Showtime) but also two fighter promotional groups come together, learn how to work together and execute this huge event in a period of eight or nine weeks was a daunting task. But I think the telecast and the PPV results speak for themselves. I have nothing but praise for everyone who worked on this event.

MCN: So put the fight’s PPV performance in perspective: what does the event’s 4.4 million buys and more than $400 million mean for the future of the sport?

SE: What it means for the fight and the sport is sort of a new measuring stick for mainstream appeal of boxing. It’s been decades since the sport has received this level of attention and maybe not even then. To be able to capture the imagination and attention of the mainstream audience in such a short period of time on a very, very busy sports weekend speaks volumes about the continued appeal of this sport. Having said that, not every fight is going to be Mayweather/Pacquiao, but for the right matchups there’s still tremendous appeal and demand for boxing.

MCN: What do you say to the folks who say the fight itself was lackluster and failed to live up to the hype?

SE: When you’re dealing with two elite athletes like Mayweather and Pacquiao the distinction and separation in skill between them is going to be relatively minute. These are the two best fighters in the world, so you can look at that and realize that it was very unlikely that there was going to be a knockout. Having said that, there was plenty of action throughout the fight and there was risk on both sides. The fight had thrilling moments – there was plenty for the casual fan and for the hard core fan. Those who were looking for a brutal slugfest were obviously disappointed, but anyone who appreciates the skill and technical prowess that’s required at the highest levels of boxing was treated to a unique and perhaps once in a lifetime exhibition of that.

MCN: Mayweather has one more fight on his six-fight deal with Showtime. Have you begun to think about the next fight?

SE: Yes. Floyd has continued to tell us that he intends to fight Sept. 12 and that it will be the last fight of his career. So we are beginning the very preliminary preparations for exactly that. We will be getting into discussions about an opponent for him very quickly. We will look to ride the momentum of this event and capitalize on the fact that Floyd has now distinguished himself as the fighter of his era.

MCN: Any thought whatsoever about a possible Mayweather-Pacquiao rematch?

SE: I think we have to remain open to it. There’s a lot of chatter on both sides about the possibility – once Manny successfully recovers from [shoulder] surgery, if there a demand and if Floyd is still active or would consider coming back to being active then it would be a topic of conversation. But it will be driven by demand.

HBO and Showtime tonight (May 9) will simultaneously air a replay of last Saturday's Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao fight, and while the action in the ring didn't quite live up to expectations, the fight's pay-per-view performance is shaping up to be a knockout for the industry.

Fight co-distributors HBO and Showtime are still saying that it’s still too early to project a PPV buy number for the heavily hyped "fight of the century," but satellite, cable and telco distributors are reporting record-breaking numbers that are poised to easily push the fight beyond the industry record 2.5 million buy mark set by the 2007 Mayweather-Oscar De La Hoya fight and the $152 million PPV revenue record pinned down by the 2013 Mayweather-Canelo Alvarez fight.

The fight could approach the rarified air of 3 to 4 million buys and more than $300 million in PPV revenues if early buy numbers are any indication, according to industry observers.

Satellite provider DirecTv alone drew more than 1 million buys for the fight despite facing some challenges with processing a multitiude of same-day fight purchases, DirecTv chairman Mike White said during the company’s first quarter earnings call last week.

“There's no doubt that sports, particularly live sports, continues to draw massive audience. We were thrilled with the results of the fight … it was a record for us,” he said. “We had some challenges getting everybody through, but we did get everybody through. We were ready to go by the end and we learned a lot out of it, but we just blew the doors off in terms of sales, which was nice because it will help the second quarter."

Cable industry PPV event aggregator In Demand would not reveal specific numbers, but a spokesperson said that, “early estimates indicate that the MayPac event will shatter both the buy and revenue records for a single event in the PPV category.” 

Telco provider Verizon also set a company PPV buy record with the fight, which had generated more than 250,000 purchases, according to Bob Elek, Verizon spokesman. He added that the provider experienced “minor” problems with order processing due to a 500% increase in fight buys on the day of the event compared to the number of buys generated prior to the May 2 bout.

Even reported illegal streaming of the fight from social media apps Periscope and Meerkat could stop the PPV momentum for Mayweather-Pacquiao.

While the fight generated what many observers called a lackluster 12-round majority decision win for Mayweather, talk about a potential rematch had begun to build throughout the week – especially when it was revealed that Pacquiao suffered a shoulder injury in training which may have hampered his performance in the ring.

But Mayweather all but squashed any talk of a fight sequel in an interview with Showtime that will air in its entirety tonight. After initially revealing that he would be open to a rematch, Mayweather told Showtime reporter Jim Gray that Pacquiao doesn't deserve a rematch. “Did I text Stephen A. Smith and say I will fight him again?  Yeah, but I change my mind,” said Mayweather.  “At this particular time, no, because he’s a sore loser and he’s a coward… If you lost, accept the loss and say, ‘Mayweather, you were the better fighter.’”