By Chris Williams: Bob Arum, the promoter for Manny Pacquiao, is incredibly happy about the move of the May 7th fight between his fighter Pacquiao vs. 39-year-old Shane Mosley from HBO to CBS/Showtime. Arum hopes that with the ability for the Pacquiao-Mosley fight to be advertised on CBS, a non-premium cable channel, the fight will reach more people and thus more boxing fans will purchase the fight on pay-per-view. If that’s the case, I’m happy for Arum because he’ll make a lot of money.
However, unless I’m missing something here, Pacquiao is still facing Mosley on May 7th and Mosley still looks like a completely shot fighter based on his last two fights. Whether the Pacquiao-Mosley fight reaches more people and makes Pacquiao, Mosley and Arum more money isn’t something I really care about. If the fight is a mismatch, how is anything changed by more or less people watching it?
Arum is talking about things that will benefit him, his company and the fighters in terms of money, but not stuff that will benefit the average boxing fan. I can see this as a benefit for us, the fans, if Arum were to start talking about lowering the price of the PPV Pacquiao-Mosley fight, but he’s not doing that. The fight will go for the same amount as it was previously. So where is the benefit then for us, the fans? I think when Arum talks, he wants boxing fans to be happy for him and the fighters because they might make more money, but how does that effect us?
At the end of the day, Pacquiao is still facing a fighter that looks totally shot in Mosley who appears to be on his last leg. I would be happy if Arum decided all of a sudden to match Pacquiao against Sergio Martinez, Juan Manuel Marquez, Paul Williams and Andre Berto, but I know that’s probably not going to happen. So why should I be happy that these guys are going to make more money?
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