Ellerbe: Mayweather-Maidana will be a sold-out event on May 3rd; I don’t think about what Arum says

By Boxing News - 04/17/2014 - Comments

MAIDANA-2055(Photo credit: Stephani Trapp/Showtime) By Chris Williams: Last Wednesday, Mayweather Promotions CEO Leonard Ellerbe briefly commented on Top Rank promoter Bob Arum’s controversial remarks about how fans should boycott the May 3rd fight card headlined by Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Marcos Maidana on Showtime pay-per-view from the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Ellerbe said the card will do well regardless of what Arum says.

“I don’t think about what Arum says, I have nothing to say, we’re going to have a sold-out event 5/3, that’s all that matters,” Ellerbe said.

Ellerbe is right, of course. The Mayweather-Maidana fight is going to do well, just as Arum’s No.1 fighter Manny Pacquiao likely did well with his fight last Saturday night at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Fans want to see these fighters, and one person isn’t going to be able to keep fans from buying the fight just by suggesting that they should boycott the event.

I would say that Mayweather did a better job in picking out his opponent in Maidana than Pacquiao and Arum did in selecting Bradley.

Maidana brings the possibility of attracting massive amounts of Hispanic fans to a Mayweather fight in terms of pay-per-view buys and by ticket sales at the MGM Grand. Bradley’s a somewhat popular fighter, but I doubt he was able to make much of an impact in the area of increased PPV sales last Saturday.

Mayweather-Maidana will likely bring in between 1.4 to 1.7 million PPV buys on May 3rd, and I expect to dwarf the numbers that the Pacquiao-Bradley 2 fight brought in. Golden Boy Promotions did a great job of adding Adrien Broner and Amir Khan t the undercard of the Mayweather vs. Maidana card, and just by having those guys on the card, it’s realistically going to increase PPV sales by a huge number. It doesn’t matter that Broner and Khan aren’t fighting each other, just having them on the card will bump up Mayweather’s PPV stats.

If Mayweather-Maidana brings in much bigger PPV numbers than the Pacquiao-Bradley 2 card, it’s going to make it tougher in the future to put together a Pacquiao vs. Mayweather fight. For Pacquiao, it would be the second consecutive fight where he’s failed to draw huge PPV numbers, and that would reflect on his ability to pull in fans. Pacquiao’s deteriorating PPV numbers would be a clear sign that he’s not being matched up against the right opponents. Mayweather wouldn’t have to offer Pacquiao much of a cut of the purse if it’s proven that the 35-year-old Pacquiao is no longer bringing in big PPV numbers like he did in the past. That’s the negative part about all the less than interesting fights that Pacquiao has been in over the years.

At some point, fans lose interest after getting a bad product in watching Pacquiao fight guys like Bradley, Antonio Margarito, Joshua Clottey, Shane Mosley and Brandon Rios. Those were bad choices if you’re thinking of keeping Pacquiao as a viable star. It’s like if you have a good football team. You don’t want to be matching the team against marginal opposition if you want to draw fans and strengthen the franchise. You want to have them playing against the best. Unfortunately, we haven’t seen that a lot during the past 5 years for Pacquiao.



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