Pacquiao-Bradley drew only 700,000 buys

By Boxing News - 08/11/2012 - Comments

Image: Pacquiao-Bradley drew only 700,000 buysBy Chris Williams: It’s reported that Manny Pacquiao’s fight against Tim Bradley last June only drew 700,000 pay-per-view buys on HBO, according to the Manila Bulletin. This is a huge departure from the 900,000 buys that many boxing fans had heard that the Pacquiao-Bradley fight brought in.

Those are terrible numbers, at least in comparison to some of Pacquiao’s recent big fights against Antonio Margarito, Miguel Cotto, Shane Mosley and Juan Manuel Marquez. Pacquiao hasn’t had numbers this low since he brought in only 660,000 buys against Top Rank stable fighter Joshua Clottey in 2010 in an in house fight that should have been never made in the first place given the differences in popularity between the two fighters.

With Pacquiao’s low numbers for the Bradley fight, he can pretty much forget all about getting an even deal with Floyd Mayweather Jr. now. There’s no way Mayweather Jr. will agree to a 50-50 deal now that these numbers are out.

Bob Arum didn’t do Pacquiao any favors by matching him against his newest Top Rank signee Bradley. Why on early did Arum make that fight? He may have made out on the short term because it was an in house fight for him, meaning he wouldn’t have to share the money with another promoter. However, it potentially messed Pacquiao up for a fight against Mayweather because there’s no way Mayweather is going to agree to a 50-50 deal against fighter that just lost his last fight and only drew 700,000 buys. That would be crazy on Mayweather’s part to give Pacquiao a 50-50 deal after he brought in those kinds of numbers.

What was Arum thinking when he decided to match Pacquiao against Bradley? Couldn’t Arum see that Bradley didn’t have a significant fanbase and that this would be another fight similar to the Clottey-Pacquiao fight in terms of PPV buys.

And now Arum is talking about trying to match Pacquiao up in rematches against Bradley, Miguel Cotto and Juan Manuel Marquez. Pacquiao should just take the rest of the year off and trying to get a Mayweather fight early next year before something else bad happens like another loss or another fight that brings in lower than expected PPV buys for the Filipino.



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