By Sean McDaniel: At yesterday’s press conference in New York, Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer made a bold prediction, stating that the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Shane Mosley bout will sell 3 million pay per view buys on May 1st.
That’s an excellent number if this was a fight that matched two huge mega stars, but Mosley might not be a big enough pay per view attraction to help Mayweather attain those kinds of numbers. There’s also a big question as to whether Mayweather in his own right is a big per view star to get those kinds of numbers.
In the fights where Mayweather has done well on PPV, he’s faced a big star across from him such as Oscar De La Hoya, Ricky Hatton and most recently Juan Manuel Marquez. Mayweather hasn’t brought in huge numbers when matched against an opponent that wasn’t a proven pay per view seller. And for Mosley, the fights that he’s been involved with that have done well on pay per view have had De La Hoya as his opponent. Mosley’s other fights against Fernando Vargas and Winky Wright didn’t have huge numbers.
I think the Mayweather-Mosley fight will do well on pay per view, but nowhere close to three million buys. That’s way too high for this fight. My guess is it will do one and a half million at best, maybe slightly more or slightly less, but I can’t see it even reaching two million. Mosley has been out of boxing for a year, and hasn’t helped himself by being out of the ring for such a long time.
And Mayweather isn’t popular enough on his own to create a huge three million pay per view without a big star like Manny Pacquiao or De La Hoya facing him. Mosley is a great fighter, but he hasn’t built up a huge fan base perhaps because of his modest, unassuming personality. It takes more than that to win over fans. In other countries like England or the Philippines, a fighter can be humble and still be hugely popular, but not in the United States.
It’s totally different here. To become a big star here, you have to be in people’s face, look good, fight well and be other the top with your personality. It helps to have blazing hand speed and incredible power to be sure, but the personality department has a big part of making someone a star.
Over fourteen thousand tickets were sold in the first fifteen minutes for the Mayweather vs. Mosley fight.
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