Arum says Pacquiao-Vargas won’t be available on delay

By Boxing News - 09/26/2016 - Comments

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By Chris Williams: For boxing fans unclear whether to purchase the Manny Pacquiao vs. Jessie Vargas fight on Top Rank pay-per-view on November 5, the fight WILL NOT be shown on delay a week later on tape delay on non-pay-per-view like in the past when Pacquiao’s fights were televised on HBO.

This is how Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum has setup his fight against Vargas, as he feels there’s less an incentive for fans to buy the pay-per-view fights if they can see it a week later on non-pay-per-view.

HBO was offered the Pacquiao-Vargas fight by Arum, but they decided not to show it due to them already having the Sergey Kovalev vs. Andre Ward fight on pay-per-view during November.

“People shell out money for the pay-per-view and a lot of people say, ‘If we can watch it the next week why spend the money?’ But there won’t be a delay on HBO the week after this fight,” said Arum to espn.com.

The fans that historically skip purchasing pay-per-view events when it’s a poor match-up, which some boxing fans argue the Pacquiao vs. Vargas fight is, might not know that the fight won’t be shown on delay the week later. I’d there’s a good chance that most people won’t be aware that they can’t view the Pacquiao-Vargas fight a week later on regular HBO.

I don’t know if it would matter to the fans that are aware that the Pacquiao-Vargas fight won’t be shown on non-PPV, because it’s not seen as a compelling fight. The boxing fans wanted to see Pacquiao fight more interesting champions and contenders like Keith Thurman, Errol Spence, Saul Canelo Alvarez and Terence Crawford. Jessie Vargas is not seen as a pay-per-view type of fighter.

There will be some boxing fans that will purchase the fight due to Pacquiao’s star power, but it’s a bad fight and not a good career move for the Filipino fighter if he wants to stay in the limelight as a top money maker. The match-making that has been done for Pacquiao in the last four years has been uneven with Arum putting him in with a lot of fighters that the fans didn’t care to see him fight.

Pacquiao has been put in with Tim Bradley three times in Top Rank in house fights, along with Brandon Rios and Chris Algieri. Those were two fights the fans didn’t care for, but they were put on PPV none the less. The only really interesting fight for Pacquiao in the last four years was his match-up against Floyd Mayweather Jr., which he lost last year.