By Chris Williams: Manny Pacquiao’s personal adviser Michael Koncz doesn’t see a fight between Pacquiao and #2 WBC Luis Carlos Abregu on November 22nd as an interesting fight for the 35-year-old Pacquiao. Bob Arum of Top Rank is interested in a possible match between Pacquiao and the Argentinian Abregu, but apparently Koncz isn’t all that excited about the idea. Koncz says they have a list of fighters they’re choosing from, and that they’ll make their decision by the end of June.
“[Abregu] is not the top one on our list. We are not too excited about that,” Koncz said to the Manilastandardtoday.com. “We will make the decision at the end of the family vacation of Manny by the last week of June,” Koncz said.
It seems pretty obvious that Juan Manuel Marquez is No.1 on their list. That’s a given. He’s the only one that Pacquiao can fight right now in Arum’s Top rank stable that can draw fans, but if he says no to the fight, Pacquiao and Koncz are going to need to come up with a good alternative. If they choose Ruslan Provodnikov, they’ll be making a mistake because the Russian might beat Pacquiao. Besides that, it’ll be another Brandon Rios type of fight in terms of pay-per-view buys because Provodnikov doesn’t have a large fan base.
I don’t even think it’ll do as good as the 475,000 PPV buys the Pacquiao-Rios fight brought in because many of those buys likely were from Rios’ Mexican fans in the U.S. A Pacquiao-Provodnikov fight might be lucky to get even 300,000 PPV buys. We’re talking a real disaster. At least Arum knows what time it is by mentioning Abregu as a possible opponent for Pacquiao, because even though he’s not Mexican, he’ll at least have a good chance of attracting a fair amount of Mexican fans to purchase the fight. It would likely be a much better fight financially for Pacquiao than a fight against Provodnikov.
Koncz also doesn’t see the point of having WBA Super World featherweight champion Nonito Donaire on the undercard of Pacquiao’s November 22nd fight.
“How is he [Donaire] going to sell one more ticket that Manny can’t sell? Manny will sell the entire Philppine audience…Why will we spend $1 million in profits on a fight that’s not going to generate any actual additional income? If it does, it will be very little.”
It looks like Koncz is watching every penny now for Pacquiao’s fight cards. It makes you wonder if that’s the reason why Pacquiao’s undercards are so barren of talent nowadays.
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