Arum expects Khan to bring 3000+ Brits to U.S for Pacquiao fight

By Boxing News - 09/23/2015 - Comments

khan4343By Scott Gilfoid: Top Rank promoter Bob Arum has grand visions of what a fight between his fighter former eight division world champion Manny “Pacman” Pacquiao (57-6-2, 38 KOs) and Amir “King” Khan (31-3, 19 KOs) could be like if he schedules the fight for the start of 2016.

Arum thinks that Khan will be able to bring over a giant horde of Brits totaling as high as 4,000 to support Khan for his big fight against Pacquiao. Having a bunch of Brits traveling over from the UK to see Khan take on Pacquiao will ensure that the fight is a sellout for wherever Arum wants to stage the Pacquiao-Khan fight.

Arum has already said that he wants Pacquiao’s next fight to take place in Las Vegas, Nevada rather than Macau, China or some other place. Now all Arum needs to do is make up his mind about who he wants to match against Pacquiao, because he’s still trying to make his decision about who will be the best one for Pacquiao.

“If Manny fights Khan, Khan will probably bring 3,000 or 4,000 people over from the U.K. for the fight,” Arum said to ESPN.com.

I really don’t think it matters all that much how many fans come over from England to see Khan fight. All of Pacquiao’s fights sellout in the United States anyway, even when he fights the lesser guys. The only fights that haven’t sold out in the last five years was when Arum staged two fights at the Cowboys Stadium for Pacquiao against Joshua Clottey and Antonio Margarito.

I’m not sure whether Arum made more money by having the fights staged there. Those fights brought in huge crowds, quite a big bigger than the crowds Pacquiao attracted for his fights in Las Vegas, but I believe the tickets were less expensive. Arum might have been better off staging Pacquiao’s fights against Margarito and Clottey in Las Vegas rather than Texas.

I think the only real benefit of Pacquiao fighting Khan is the fact that Khan is so media friendly. He’s open to giving interviews 24/7 to almost anyone that asks to speak with him. Khan is great at marketing his fights.

If all fighters were like Khan, we’d have a lot more bigger names in the sport. Unfortunately, it’s not like that. Khan will do most of the work to promote the Khan-Pacquiao fight, and that will in turn help the success of the fight.

Khan might end up wearing himself down a little with his interviews and traveling around the U.S, but I think it will help his bottom line if he’s given a cut of the pay-per-view revenue from the U.S PPV sales rather than a flat fee like Andre Berto received for his fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr.

“We won’t deal with Haymon. We deal directly with family about fighting Manny Pacquiao,” said Arum.

Arum is suing Al Haymon, the adviser for Khan, for $100 million in an antitrust lawsuit. It’s been thought by a lot of fans that the suit would get in the way of a Pacquiao-Khan fight from taking place, but Arum doesn’t seem to think so. Arum is in negotiations with Khan’s father and uncle rather than Haymon in arranging this fight.

Juan Manuel Marquez, who Arum is hoping will agree to a fifth fight with Pacquiao, has already said he won’t be taking the fight with Pacquiao. However, that’s not stopping Arum from still trying. He’s very interested in having Pacquiao face Marquez for a fifth time because it’s a fight that would virtually guarantee a lot of pay-per-view buys due to Marquez’s popularity with Mexican fans in the United States.

“We want to know for sure the status of Juan Manuel Marquez before we make any decisions,” Arum said. “Marquez would be the most lucrative fight, and Manny would be happy to fight him again.”

As much as Arum has been talking about wanting to match Pacquiao against Khan, I think he could ultimately wind up matching him instead against Marquez if he can lure the Mexican star into agreeing to the fight. Arum will need to make a fairly high offer for him to get Marquez to show interest. I don’t think Arum will agree to a 50-50 deal, but he might go as high as offering Marquez a 70-30 or 65-35 split of the revenue. That’s about as high as I think Arum would be willing to go for a Pacquiao-Marquez fight. Unfortunately, I don’t think it’ll be high enough to interest Marquez.



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