By Dan Ambrose: It looks like Top Rank promoter Bob Arum may be having second thoughts about a rematch between his two Top Rank stable fighters Timothy Bradley and Manny Pacquiao after Bradley pulled off a huge upset last Saturday night by beating Pacquiao.
Arum told the Los Angeles Times after speaking to ticket brokers about whether a rematch between Pacquiao and Bradley is a good idea: “No one wants to come.”
It’s interesting because Pacquiao does want the rematch, but the brokers are probably right that a rematch between Pacquiao and Bradley might not sell a lot of tickets. A big reason for this is the taint from the fight with a lot of boxing fans feeling that Pacquiao should have won. Having boxing fans pay to see a second fight between Pacquiao and Bradley could be a real turnoff.
When fans are given a bad product, such as the Pacquiao-Bradley fight, asking them to pay to see it again would be a big risk on Arum’s part. I’m sure he can get away with it, because Pacquiao has enough fans that would guarantee that it would do well on pay per view. However, Arum is likely interested in maximizing his PPV numbers, and the best way to do that would be for him to steer Pacquiao into a rematch against Juan Manuel Marquez or Miguel Cotto.
Marquez is the better fight right now because he’s currently with Top Rank. He’ll bring in a lot of fans. If Pacquiao wanted to fight Cotto, Pacquiao would have to agree to fighting Cotto at a catchweight of 150 pounds, and it doesn’t look like Pacquiao is ready to do that. He had the option of facing Cotto instead of Bradley in his last fight, but the fight couldn’t be put together because Cotto didn’t want to drain all the way down to 147 to fight Pacquiao.
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