By Chris Williams: Manny Pacquiao’s star is clearly starting to fade as we’ve seen in his last two fights which both resulted in him losing. It’s no longer just considered bad judging that Pacquiao is getting beaten; his knockout loss to Juan Manuel Marquez is proof of that. It’s obvious that Pacquiao won’t be able to go much farther before he starts taking losses almost every time out.
His promoter Bob Arum doesn’t seem interested in backing him off of the top grade opposition because it would likely mean less interest and much smaller pay per view numbers. As such, we’re likely going to see Pacquiao put out of his misery pretty quickly and possibly as early as his next fight. But Arum has one fighter that he could try and push as the Manny replacement and that’s WBO super bantamweight champion Nonito Donaire.
Donaire is already 30-years-old, and quite far beyond Pacquiao in terms of the money he makes and the interest he generates for his fights. However, the 34-year-old Pacquiao wasn’t making real big money until he fought Oscar De La Hoya in 2008. From that point on, Pacquiao has gotten more and more money with each.
Pacquiao is now making roughly $20 million per fight, and that’s really good money given that he’s not self-promoted like Floyd Mayweather Jr. It’s doubtful that Pacquiao’s numbers will stay that high with him getting beaten consistently now. Those numbers will have to go down because the boxing public isn’t going to like the idea of paying big cash to see him on PPV if he’s not even winning.
Donaire is right about the same age as Pacquiao was when he started to get big bank for his fights. However, Donaire doesn’t have an Oscar De La Hoya to make him a big star. All he has is Abner Mares and Guillermo Rigondeax, and for some reason Donaire’s promoter won’t put him in with those guys. He’s facing shot fighters like Jorge Arce and Toshiaki Nishioka in dull one-sided fights that lacked competitiveness due to how shot the fighters were.
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