By Keith Darren: Manny Pacquiao’s PPV buys is one of the highest (Floyd has the record) and in his incoming fight against Margarito on November 13, naysayers are predicting low PPVs because many say it is not the fight they wanted. Of course people are longing to see Manny fight Floyd and determine who is the real pound for pound king. But since two attempts to put Pac and Floyd together in a match did not materialized, Bob Arum gave Margarito a chance to redeem himself and have him as Pacquiao’s next opponent.
One of the reasons why negotiations to have Floyd face Pac failed is the issue on purse split (aside from the more controversial RBT) with Floyd camp stressing they should get the bigger slice of the pie due to Floyd’s being the bigger PPV draw. Pacman’s camp demanded 50-50 share saying Manny do well also in PPVs and that he also commands large group of boxing fans. But what if Pac vs Marg fight did not do well in PPVs? Can Pac’s camp still demand 50-50 share? Or will they just allow Floyd get the lion’s share in order for the fight to happen? Of course if on November 13, the bout draws big PPVs, then Pac can have the upper hand in his negotiations with the Floyd camp. Therefore, we have to see if Pacquiao vs Margarito will do well in the PPVs.
Pacquiao had one of the best PPV records, and that’s unquestionable. Margarito has his Hispanic followers and they could help sell the fight. The media is also helping hype the fight. All the talks are about the fight, negative or positive issues, still it makes the fight so big that it will do good in the PPVs. Boxing fans play their part too by making the fight more interesting by talking a lot of things about the fighters and about the fight itself. Even those who hate Pacman are helping the bout to look big as it aroused more curiosity among people. They keep on talking different issues about Pac, like the RBT, his lackluster performance during their training camp, that Pac is too small for Margarito and that he will be badly beaten, and anything that degrades Pacman, making people more curious about the fight and see how a “midget” fare against the giant. People are also curious about Margarito. They want to know if the Tijuana Tornado can redeem himself and get away with the hand wrap controversy which still haunts him up to this day. Just recently, Margarito mocked Roach’s moves not knowing, according to him, that Freddie has Parkinson’s disease and now Manny seem to take the revenge for Freddie.
All these things hype the already big fight. Whether you like it or not, this fight is happening on November 13, 2010 at Dallas Cowboys Stadium in Texas. HBO’s 24/7 is covering the pre-fight series that made it bigger. So if we will ask, will it do good PPVs? Definitely yes! More than a million I would say.
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