Arum’s retread opponents for Pacquiao may fail to increase his PPV numbers

By Boxing News - 08/12/2012 - Comments

Image: Arum's retread opponents for Pacquiao may fail to increase his PPV numbersBy Chris Williams: With Manny Pacquiao’s pay-per-view numbers down considerably from his past fight, his promoter Bob Arum is looking to put a retreat opponent in with Pacquiao for November 10th in hopes of bringing Pacquiao’s PPV numbers back up where they once were.

Arum wants to trot out Juan Manuel Marquez or Miguel Cotto as the Filipino’s next opponent. The thing is neither of these are great fights for Pacquiao, because Cotto just lost his last fight to Floyd Mayweather Jr. last May, and it’s too soon to be putting Cotto back in with Pacquiao coming off of a loss.

I don’t see Pacquiao’s PPV numbers increasing because boxing fans are already wise to the same fighters being trotted out to fight Pacquiao. How many times can Arum serve up a Pacquiao-Marquez or Pacquiao-Cotto fight? It’s not even interesting anymore. Cotto just got whipped, Pacquiao is getting old, and Marquez is too. Besides, it’s tiresome to see Marquez get the better of Pacquiao and end up losing every time. Who wants to see a fourth fight between them when you know what’s going to happen already. Marqudz will make Pacquiao look bad, but then find himself still losing the fight. Pacquiao’s loss to Tim Bradley recently was the first time Pacquiao experienced what Marquez has been going through since 2004 against Pacquiao.

As for Cotto, he just beat so why is he even being mentioned by Arum? When a fighter gets beaten like Cotto did, you generally want to build them back up so that boxing fans start believing in them again. You don’t throw them in with Pacquiao because you think it’ll make money. I honestly don’t think a Pacquiao-Cotto fight will even generate 900,000 buys because of the combinations of Cotto’s recent defeat the hands of Mayweather and Pacquiao’s previous win over Cotto in 2009. How do you sell a fight between Pacquiao and Cotto?

Would it be Arum saying ‘I know Pacquiao really beat Cotto badly last time, but this time things are different because Cotto was competitive in losing his last fight.’ Anyway you want to look at it, Cotto lost his last fight, and he was already soundly beaten by Pacquiao three years ago.

Seeing Pacquiao fight Cotto or Marquez again is like watching a movie for the 100th time. I think boxing fans are sick of seeing him fight those guys, and it’s that Arum let his cash cow fighter finally fight Floyd Mayweather Jr. We don’t need to hear about the stadium or whatever ache and pain that Pacquiao has that’s getting in the way of the fight. Arum needs to let it happen so that some new blood can face Pacquiao instead of these same old guys that Arum keeps trotting out.



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