Could Mayweather-Marquez reach 1.6 Million Buys?

By Boxing News - 09/23/2009 - Comments

marquez43434By Chris Williams: If the latest news reports are too believed, the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Juan Manuel Marquez fight could go as high as 1.6 million pay-per-view buys, if you believe the early reports. All I can say is that if these numbers aren’t bogus, like I think they are, there’s a lot of casual boxing fans who have no clue about the sport.

Actually, I think this is something that might end up being a bad thing for boxing, because if HBO and Golden Boy were able to dress up the garbage match-up between the blown up super featherweight Marquez and a ring rusty, cherry picking Mayweather and sell it to the public with these kinds of big numbers, then we may end up seeing more circus-like mismatches like this in the future.

I really hope not. I don’t want to see Mayweather fighting shrimps for the rest of his career, taking on the likes of Vic Darchinyan, Ivan Calderon and a whole slew of other little fighters in pay per view fights. If Mayweather can fight pretty much anyone he pleases and still bring in big numbers, what’s to stop him from continuing to fight the little guys without end?

Who needs Shane Mosley when there’s always another lightweight out there begging to get thrown around for a couple of million. If the casual boxing fan is willing to pay for almost any slop that they throw up that has Mayweather’s name on it, then boxing is in trouble. We the boxing writers have to report it like it’s a real story, even if it Mayweather coming into the fight looking like a middleweight taking on a bloated lightweight who can barely fight at the higher weight after having put on a pounds to make the division.

Like I said in my earlier article on this subject, I’m very distrustful about any PPV numbers that are leaked to the press pertaining to the Mayweather-Marquez affair because it was a fight that wasn’t selling well in the weeks leading up to the fight. Naturally, the promoters want to put the best spin on this as possible so they can come across as having put on a show that the people wanted to see.

But honestly, this was a terrible fight to arrange in the first place, and the outcome of the fight said all there is to say about it. Mayweather dominated a smaller, older and slower fight from start to finish. What did you expect? I know Mayweather lovers hate hearing the truth about this mismatch, but that’s what it was. You can’t say it any plainer than that. Any time you go hunting down a fighter two divisions smaller than you, you’re looking at a mismatch. This is why I wasn’t going to pay a dime to see this monstrosity.

If all it takes to sell a fight is to create a HBO 24/7 series on it, then they might as well forget all about matching big stars against each other from now on. They can just get a couple of fighters from different weight divisions and then have them go at it for 12 rounds until the little guy is toppled over.



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