Is the Pacquiao retirement talk a trick to get fans to purchase the fight?

By Boxing News - 10/26/2010 - Comments

Image: Is the Pacquiao retirement talk a trick to get fans to purchase the fight?By Chris Williams: One of the main themes running throughout the first episode of HBO’s 24/7 Pacquiao/Margarito episode 1 was retirement talk for Manny Pacquiao. It was something that was discussed over and over again to the point where it was beyond boring.

It reminded me of someone trying to sell something to people and playing on their fears by telling them “This is the last of it. Come get it while you still can.’ This is the way it seems to me, not just in the first episode of the 24/7 Pacquiao/Margarito, but also in the past six weeks since the Pacquiao vs. Margarito fight was announced.

We have a fight that was less than appealing to fans, and now all of a sudden Pacquiao’s camp is droning on without stop about Pacquiao possibly retiring in the near future. Every time you turn around, Freddie Roach is opening his yap and talking about it.

It just seems to me to be one of those tricks that they use on television and in department stores to sell a bad product. “Going out of business, get it while you can.” It’s pretty clear if you have your eyes open that Pacquiao isn’t going to be retiring anytime soon.

The guy likes the adoration, the perks and the money. He’s not going to give it up, and that’s why it seems so painfully obvious what they’re doing by talking the Pacquiao retirement talk all the time. It looks like they’re trying to play to your fears so that you’ll feel that this is the last chance you’ll get to see this great fighter in the ring.

It doesn’t matter if they’re putting him in with less than desirable opponents. If they play on the fear, people will purchase the fight on PPV. I’m not going pay a dime for this fight unless they discount it by $54 and sell it for $1 on PPV, because that’s what I feel it’s worth. Pacquiao should be fighting Sergio Martinez or Paul Williams, not Antonio Margarito.

I could understand this fight if Margarito had already proved that he can still punch after he was exposed for having a plaster-like material in his hand wraps last year. Now, a lot of boxing fans question whether Margarito has power of his own and not aided by loaded hand wraps.



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