By Chris Williams: Top Rank promoter Bob Arum is saying that his fighter Manny Pacquiao likely won’t be fighting in the United States any longer if his next fight with Brandon Rios brings in huge money on November 23rd in Macao, China.
In Pacquiao’s last fight with Juan Manuel Marquez last December, he was taxed at 40% due to his huge payday for that fight. But if Pacquiao continues to fight in China, he’ll be able to avoid the taxes from the American pay per view loot and make a lot more money than before.
Arum said to the Latimes.com “By fighting outside of the country, as he’s doing in this Rios fight, Manny doesn’t have to pay U.S taxes anymore at a rate of 40 percent for a foreign athlete. If this pay per view and other things take off like we think they may, I can’t imagine Pacquiao will ever again fight in the U.S.”
That may sound like a negative for U.S boxing used to seeing Manny fight in the U.S, but you’ve got to realize that he’s almost 35, he’s lost his last two fights and chances are he’s going to get knocked out cold by Rios on November 23rd. Arum paints a potentially rosy picture for Pacquiao, but what he doesn’t state is that his fighter’s career could be heading south if he loses this fight.
I don’t know too many Americans that will continue to want to pay to see Pacquiao’s fights on PPV if he loses his third straight fight. At that point, you might as well stick Pacquiao on regular HBO and/or ESPN because how do you charge boxing fans $60 to see a fighter with three straight loses.
It’s too bad Arum didn’t come up with the China angle earlier in Pacquiao’s career because he’d have a lot more money if he could have escaped U.S taxes for the past six years. However, I don’t think Pacquiao would be nearly as popular either.
Arum made Pacquiao popular by having his fights take place in the U.S, and now that he’s got a lot of U.S boxing fans hooked on him, Arum can have Pacquiao’s fights staged outside of the U.S to make the look without the taxes from the U.S. But I don’t think Pacquiao would make big money if he didn’t establish himself in the U.S first, so it’s not as if other foreign fighters will be able to do this because casual boxing fans won’t have clue who they are.
For Arum’s sake, he better hope that Pacquiao doesn’t get knocked out by Rios on November 23rd because the Pacquiao gravy train will likely start to shown signs of grinding to a halt if he loses a third straight fight. I honestly can see Pacquiao losing to Rios, Mike Alvarado, Tim Bradley and Juan Manuel Marquez in his next four fights with Arum still selling each fight as PPV despite Pacquiao losing repeatedly. Naturally, the PPV numbers will likely drop with each loss.
Comments are closed.