PacquiaoBy Chris Williams: On November 23rd, Manny Pacquiao will be facing Brandon Rios in a fight that will be televised on HBO pay per view from Macau, China. There still isn’t a price listing for U.S boxing fans, but if history is any guide the fight will likely be shown for $59.99 and likely higher for HD.
With both guys coming off of losses, and Pacquiao having lost his last two fights, how is it that this fight is on PPV?
When a fighter no longer is winning his fights then how do you ask the boxing public to pay the same money they were paying when Pacquiao was winning?
I think if Bob Arum is going to insist on the fight being a PPV bout, then he should discount it steeply to account for the fact that Pacquiao has lost his last two fights and Rios is also coming off of a loss.
Besides that, the fight isn’t all that interesting anyway. Rios has unfinished business with lightweight Richard Abril, who dominated him in every sense of the word last year and then ended up getting jobbed.
How Rios could walk away from that fight and say he deserved that win with a straight face is beyond me. If it was me who won a fight like that I’d be ashamed and I couldn’t live with the guilt.
Given that Rios still has the baggage following him around from the Abril fight as well as his recent loss to Alvarado, I don’t see him worth paying a dime to see. In my view, this isn’t even a $4.99 fight card. But if Arum does insist on making it a PPV fight to sell it to Pacquiao’s loving fans, then he should at least do the right thing by discounting it a bargain basement rate of $2.99.
I think that’s more than fair under the circumstances. Pacquiao has lost his last two fights and Rios should have two losses out of his last three fights.
Who wants to pay to see guys like that? Boxing fans can watch guys with losing streaks for free on ESPN2 or on the undercards of the two premium networks in terms of the many mismatches that are routinely set up to make prospects/contenders look better than they actually are.
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