It was a banner weekend for HBO this weekend. The highly anticipated season premiere of the 'The Sopranos' did huge numbers. According to a story in Wednesday's LA Times, estimates from Nielsen Media Research indicate that 13.4 million people were viewing one of HBO's channels while the fourth season of the highly acclaimed series kicked off, easily winning its time slot and topping all three major broadcast networks.

Equally impressive, were the numbers put up for the fight between Oscar De La Hoya and Fernando Vargas this past Saturday night on HBO Pay-Per-View. The grudge match garnered around 900,000 pay-per-view buys, generating almost $46 million in revenues. These figures far exceeded the projections that had been laid out for this event.

"The pay-per-view of De La Hoya-Vargas significantly exceeded our expectations," an excited Mark Taffett of HBO Pay-Per-View told MaxBoxing.com. "We had hoped that the fight would do in excess of 600,000 buys that we did approximately with the De La Hoya-Mosley, Quartey and Chavez fights. And that maybe we'd approach that numbers for De La Hoya-Whitaker. But never did we expect that the fight would explode to 900,000 buys."

To put this into proper perspective, this is the second-highest number of buys for a non-heavyweight pay-per-view event, second only to De La Hoya-Trinidad, which had 1.25 million buys. The formula seems simple: De La Hoya against another Latin star equals a box-office bonanza.

And the regional sales figures point that out:

In San Antonio, Texas Vargas-De La Hoya sold over three times as many pay-per-view buys as De La Hoya-Mosley.

In Puerto Rico Bad Blood sold nearly four times as many pay-per-view buys as De La Hoya-Mosley and satellite dish owners bought this fight at nearly seven times the rate.

In Los Angeles, California the fight sold nearly 50% more buys than Lennox Lewis-Mike Tyson and nearly 30% more buys than De La Hoya-Trinidad.

Anytime a fight generates that much revenue, a rematch is always a possibility.

"If you look, particularly at the first nine rounds of the fight," Taffett said, "many of the scorecards had it 5-4, either one way or the other. It was close, it was also an very exciting fight in the ring and on television. Fernando Vargas, showed tremendous heart and strength early in the fight and De La Hoya showed incredible heart and courage and skill later in the fight when he turned it around. I believe there absolutely could be a rematch that the public would accept but I don't know if the fighters would be interested in a rematch at this point."

On Thursday afternoon at his press conference, Vargas expressed his desire for one and said that the ball is in Oscar's court. But De La Hoya has more unfinished business to attend to, starting with an early May match-up against either Trinidad or Mosley.

"Oscar has said publicly and to us that Trinidad and Mosley are the two fights that he wants to help secure his place in boxing history," Taffett explains. "He wants those fights for personal and professional reasons."

Taffett mentions that the respective promoters of De La Hoya (Bob Arum) and Trinidad (Don King) have come to terms on an agreement, the only problem is that Trinidad's retirement, looks more and more like it's permanent.

"Until that issue changes," says Taffett, "there is no rematch (with Trinidad) and it would appear that Mosley would be the next attraction for Oscar because Oscar says he wants to avenge his defeats."

But it's clear, Oscar is the pound-for-pound pay-per-view king below the heavyweight level.

"Oh, yeah," agrees Taffett. "Oscar has been the biggest non-heavyweight draw in pay-per-view since 1997 when he fought Whitaker, Miguel Angel Gonzalez and Hector Camacho. At that time in 1997, De La Hoya-Whitaker was the highest grossing non-heavyweight fight (with around 725,000 buys) and that record remained till De La Hoya-Trinidad in 1999. Oscar is just not the top grossing non-heavyweight attraction, but he IS a heavyweight attraction when it comes to the numbers that he draws. He does as good as most heavyweights."

IRON MIKE

As impressive as De La Hoya has been as a pay-per-view attraction, Mike Tyson has dwarfed everybody. Tyson has been involved in four bouts (Holyfield I and II, Lewis and McNeely) that have all exceeded 1.5 million buys. And his bout with Lewis reached almost two million.

IMPORTANCE

While it may have done roughly half the numbers of Lewis-Tyson, De La Hoya-Vargas was ten times the fight and its importance to the overall health of the sport can't be overlooked.

It was a high-profile event that delivered on its promise and had the casual sports fan actually talking about 'the sweet science' in a positive light. This was the kind of fight where 10-15 years down the line you'll start to hear of young prospects say that De La Hoya-Vargas was the fight that inspired them to get into a gym and start boxing. Lewis-Tyson was more of a carnival act where people stuck there heads inside a booth for a few minutes to see that three-headed women or the Donkey Boy and then leave shaking their heads at what they just saw.

Lewis-Tyson only benefited those who were financially involved. 'Bad Blood' leaves a lasting impression on the sport and its fans.

EAST LA/MONTEBELLO

Being a graduate of Montebello High School (yes, I'm an Oiler and proud of it... it was the best six years of my life, ahem) I have some deep roots to the beautiful city of Montebello and spend most of my day in the Montebello-East LA area. My friends, who still live there, tell me that on the day of De La Hoya-Vargas that the area had the feel of a Texas town on a Friday afternoon before a high school football game.

I've been told that the Montebello Town Center wasn't that crowded, but all the supermarkets were packed with people getting ready for the fight.

One friend, who lives about two blocks from my alma mater -- the Harvard of East LA -- that there were no less than four big gatherings on their block centered on the fight. As I came back on Monday afternoon, whether it was going to the 7-11 off of Beverly Boulevard or getting a bite to eat at the IHOP off of Montebello Boulevard -- people were talking about the fight.

I didn't call this the Mexican-American Super Bowl for nuthin'.

REPLAY

The replay will be aired this Saturday night on HBO beginning at 9:45 ET/PT.