Arum: Pacquiao doesn’t want to fight in U.S because the taxes are too high

By Boxing News - 01/22/2013 - Comments

arum343By Chris Williams: Bob Arum, the promoter for Manny Pacquiao, says his fighter doesn’t want to fight in the United States because of the taxes being too high on his huge purses that he gets from U.S pay per view money and the large gates that he attracts in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Arum thinks the taxes have gotten out of hand and he believes it will keep the top foreign fighters from wanting to fight in the U.S anymore.

Arum said to espn.co.uk “These big foreign fighters don’t want to fight in the United States. He [Pacquiao] doesn’t want to fight in the United States. How come? Because he’d have to give close to 40% to the government…It’s getting ridiculous.”

I wonder why Arum is complaining about the taxes now. He wasn’t complaining when he was staging all those fights for Pacquiao to in the United States to make him a popular fighter in the U.S during the last four years. The fact of the matter is a fighter won’t be able to become popular in the United States and get the pay per view money and the large gate cash unless they fight in the U.S. That’s just the way it is.

HBO and Showtime televise the majority of the fights in the U.S, and Pacquiao gets his big money from the PPV money from HBO from American boxing fans. For Arum to suddenly start complaining about it now after Pacquiao has become popular in the U.S, it just looks like an excuse for Arum to take Pacquiao’s fights outside of America in order to circumvent the taxes. Arum wouldn’t be able to do this if Pacquiao hadn’t fought in the U.S become popular in the first place.

If the other foreign fighters choose not to fight in the U.S in order to avoid taxes then that’s on them, but they’ll not become popular fighters in the U.S unless they fight there and if they don’t fight in the U.S, then they won’t get the big money that the U.S offers to fighters. I don’t know that Arum has really thought out that part of it. Yes, Pacquiao can now fight outside of the U.S to avoid taxes while still enjoying the big U.S PPV money, but he wouldn’t have been able to do this unless he had fought in the U.S all those years to become a star.



Comments are closed.