By Chris Williams: There isn’t a lot of excitement in the boxing world about Manny Pacquiao’s title challenge of WBO welterweight champion Jessie Vargas (27-1, 10 KOs) in less than two weeks from now on November 5 on Top Rank pay-per-view. Bob Arum, the promoter of Pacquiao (58-6-2, 38 KOs) and Vargas, believes their fight is going to bring in very, very HUGE numbers on pay-per-view.
This might be just wishful thinking from the promoter, as the fans seem to be ignoring the fight, and thinking of other fights rather than another in house Top Rank fight that Arum has put together between his stable fighters. My own estimate for the Pacquiao-Vargas pay-per-view buys is in the 300,000 range.
I think the Pacquiao-Vargas fight will bring in some of Pacquiao’s fans from the past, wanting to see him fight for nostalgic purposes, but the fight is not going to bring in the casual boxing fans. It’s not a good fight. Vargas is an unknown to the casual fans, and even the hardcore fans are turned off by the Pacquiao-Vargas fight.
It’s unclear if anyone from the Top Rank organization told Arum that it might not have been the best of ideas for him to match Pacquiao against Vargas. This is a fight that would have been good to make when Pacquiao was at the zenith point in his career from 2010 to 2013, but not in 2016. It’s the wrong fight at the WRONG time.
Pacquiao’s record in his last seven fights is 4-3. That’s not good obviously for a pay-per-view fighter. When you’ve got a fighter with a record that is as bad as Pacquiao’s in his last seven fights, you need to match them tough against guys that the fans have heard of before. That means you’ve got take some risks with him.
It doesn’t matter if Pacquiao loses now, because he’s down to the wire anyway. He’s almost done. There’s no point in taking it easy with him now and killing his market brand. You’ve got to gamble to the hilt by matching Pacquiao against the best guys that will bring in that sweet cash. So what if Pacquiao gets knocked out again. Throw him in with Golovkin or Canelo, and let the chips fall where they lie. Pacquiao would probably make two to three times the amount of money fighting those guys than he will fighting Vargas, Tim Bradley and Terence Crawford.
It’s thought the Pacquiao-Vargas fight is going to bring in few pay-per-view buys, and it could be worse than Pacquiao’s 400,000 buys he generated for his last against Tim Bradley last April on HBO. Some fans might think 400,000 buys is a great number compared to the 300,000 that Mexican star Saul “Canelo” Alvarez recently brought in for his fight against WBO junior middleweight champion Liam Smith last September.
The Pacquiao-Vargas fight will be taking place at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas, Nevada.
“We think we’re going to do very, very big pay-per-view numbers. The pay-per-numbers we really won’t get a handle on until the week of the fight. But am I optimistic? Off the charts,” said Arum via Fight News about his PPV estimate for the Pacquiao vs. Vargas fight.
As far as I can tell, the Pacquiao-Vargas fight hasn’t sold out yet, and that’s obviously not good news. We’re only two weeks away from the fight, and it’s still not sold out. What does that tell you? It tells me that Arum blew it by matching Pacquiao against Vargas. Arum should have put Pacquiao in with Gennady “GGG” Golovkin, Saul Canelo Alvarez, Danny Garcia, Adrien Broner, Keith Thurman or Amir Khan.
Vargas would be my last choice for an opponent for Pacquiao right behind Terence Crawford. I would want to focus on putting Pacquiao in with guys that will bring in the PPV buys. Not guys that the fans will say, ‘Who is Pacquiao fighting? No thanks. I’ll wait until he fights someone I’ve heard of before rather than pay to see another obscure fighter.’
If I was Pacquiao’s promoter right now, I’d want to make sure I got the most money for each of his last remaining fights, because once he’s gone, there is no one to replace him in the organization as a pay-per-view guy. That’s why Arum should only be putting Pacquiao in with guys that will bring in the buys, because he doesn’t have enough fights left to be leaving money on the table by matching him against no names that the casual boxing fans can’t recognize.
Of course, I don’t know whether Arum has an ulterior motive in matching Pacquiao against Vargas. Perhaps this is a move to increase Vargas’ popularity with the fans. I don’t see it working if that’s why the fight is being made. You can’t force a fighter on the boxing public. They either really like a fighter from the very beginning or they don’t.
Vargas has had a lot of fights already on television, and he’s not wowed the fans. If that was lost on Arum, then someone needs to clue him in and break the news to the promoter.
Vargas doesn’t have a Gennady “GGG” Golovkin type of fighting style that the fans love to see. Vargas isn’t relentless with his fighting style. He’s more of the type of fighter who stays on the outside, throws shots, and then looks to get out of the way of incoming. Vargas does a fair amount of holding as well, and that’s not pretty to watch.
Here are Pacquiao’s pay-per-view buys for his fights since 2012:
Pacquiao vs. Tim Bradley III – 400,000 buys
Pacquiao vs. Floyd Mayweather Jr. – 4.6 million buys
Pacquiao vs. Chris Algieri – 400,000 buys
Pacquiao vs. Tim Bradley II – 800,000 buys
Pacquiao vs. Brandon Rios – 475,000 buys
Pacquiao vs. Tim Bradley I – 890,000 buys
Pacquiao vs. Juan Manuel Marquez – 1.4 million buys
Did you notice all the bad matches that Pacquiao had against Rios, Algieri and Bradley? Pacquiao likely would have brought in over 1 million buys in all of those fight dates if Arum had matched him against popular fighters rather than those guys.
“I’m not taking this fight lightly,” said Pacquiao. “Vargas is the champion and I won’t underestimate him. I’m not thinking about any fights in 2017. One at a time. I can’t say ‘yes’ right now. Let me finish this fight first!”
Arum has made it clear that he wants Pacquiao to fight Crawford next in April of next year. If he does that, I think it might bring in around 500,000 buys, possibly less. Arum obviously thinks the fight will bring in a ton of buys, but I think he’s going to be sadly disappointed with the numbers.
