By Chris Williams: As many boxing fans already know, Manny Pacquiao’s fight against Chris Algieri last month is rumored to have brought in a little over 300,000 pay-per-view buys on HBO. That total, if true, is horrible and one of the lowest PPV totals for the 36-year-old Pacquiao in many years.
The timing couldn’t come at a worse time for Pacquiao, because he was hoping to get a fight against boxing’s money fighter Floyd Mayweather Jr. Pacquiao, his trainer Freddie Roach, and his promoter Bob Arum have all been talking up a fight against Mayweather even before the Algieri fight. They feel that a fight against Mayweather would be a tremendous money maker, and it would give Pacquiao a chance to validate his career by fighting arguably the best boxer in the sport in Mayweather.
Unfortunately for Pacquiao his declining pay-per-view numbers put him in a bad position to get a fight against Mayweather, because it doesn’t make good business sense for Mayweather to fight a guy who recently pulled in low pay-per-view numbers.
There are plenty of other fighters out there who also pull in low PPV numbers, and Mayweather could face one of them and get a better percentage split of the revenue than he could against Pacquiao.
It’s likely that Pacquiao would ask for at least 40% of the purse in a fight against Mayweather, and that doesn’t make financial sense for the fight to take place if you’re Mayweather. If he has the option of getting an 80-20 split against another fighter who pulls in around the same PPV numbers as Pacquiao did in his last fight, then it makes sense for Mayweather to fight the other fighter rather than facing Pacquiao, who he would likely have to give a bigger split of the money to compared to another fighter.
Boxing is a business, and Mayweather wouldn’t be doing himself any favors if he were to fight Pacquiao right now unless he were willing to agree to an 80-20 purse split. Of course, if Pacquiao could fight someone and show that he’s still capable of pulling in huge pay-per-view numbers then that would likely help him get a fight against Mayweather, because it would show him that he can still draw fans. The last thing that Mayweather wants is to be the only one bringing in fans in a fight against Pacquiao. Right now Pacquiao isn’t in the position to ask for a big purse split against Mayweather due to his deteriorating PPV numbers.
Unless Pacquiao is receptive to taking a low purse split, he’d be better off getting in the ring against someone else and showing Mayweather that he can still bring in big PPV numbers. I’m not sure that Pacquiao can do that at this point in his career, unfortunately. But he still be better off if he were to do that instead of going into a fight against Mayweather off of his rumored low PPV totals from the Algieri fight.
Pacquiao needs to put his foot down and start insisting on facing better opposition than Chris Algieri, Tim Bradley and Brandon Rios. Those guys aren’t big enough names for Pacquiao to bring in big PPV numbers, and he should have vetoed those fights and told Arum he wants better opponents.
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