Koncz: Marquez turned down $13 million offer for Pacquiao fight

By Boxing News - 05/03/2013 - Comments

marquez34By Chris Williams: Manny Pacquiao’s adviser Michael Koncz is saying that Juan Manuel Marquez turned down an offer of $13 million to face Pacquiao in a rematch on November 23rd in Macau, China. Koncz says he doesn’t understand why Marquez would turn down such a huge amount for a 5th fight with Pacquiao.

The last time Marquez fought Pacquiao, he made only $6 million guaranteed compared to Pacquiao’s $23 million guaranteed in a 76/24 split that was heavily slanted in Pacquiao’s favor.

Koncz said to Hustleboss.com “I was quite surprised actually, because we offered Marquez $13 million dollars and then we offered Bradley $6 million.”

The $13 million might sound like a big bump up in pay for Marquez, but it probably doesn’t change the actual money split any because the pot for a fifth fight between Pacquiao and Marquez would likely be considerably larger than the one for the fourth fight last December because boxing fans are very interested in seeing Pacquiao and Marquez fight again after Marquez’s 6th round knockout win over Pacquiao last December.

As such, I can easily see the money pot being close to $40 million if not more for a fifth fight between Pacquiao and Marquez. It’s possible that Pacquiao’s guarantee for that fight would be in the neighborhood of $27 million. That’s still a deal heavily slanted in Pacquiao’s favor with him getting a 67/33 deal instead of a more fair 50-50 deal.

If Pacquiao is taking 67 percent of the purse, and Marquez’s Mexican fans are bringing in huge parts of that money though pay per view, then getting only 33 percent is not a good deal for Marquez. I don’t blame him for walking away from such a deal.

There are a lot more Mexicans in the United States than Filipinos, and I wouldn’t doubt that most of the money generated through PPV for a Pacquiao-Marquez fight would come from Marquez’s fans, and not Pacquiao’s.

Koncz says that they are now looking at matching Pacquiao with either Brandon Rios or Mike Alvarado on November 23rd, and which one gets the fight depends on which one they can get the better financial deal with. Koncz said to Hustleboss.com “We’ll see if they don’t overprice themselves.”

If Pacquiao doesn’t fight those guys, he’s got very options until they drag in Ruslan Provodnikov into the ring with him coming off of a loss. That’s not going to generate a lot of PPV buys because he doesn’t have a huge fan base in the United States, and we’re probably not going to see Pacquiao fight non-Top Rank fighters. There’s Provodnikov, Jessie Vargas, Rios or Alvarado.



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