By Barry Holbrook: Manny Pacquiao vs Keith Thurman brought in an estimated 500,000 Pay-Per-View buys last Saturday night on Fox PPV. The numbers for the fight are better than many boxing fans expected, and shows an an increase from Pacquiao’s last fight against Adrien Broner last January. That fight brought in around 400,000 buys.
For Pacquiao to go above 500K PPV buys, he’s going to need to face someone like Errol Spence Jr., Floyd Mayweather Jr. or Terence Crawford. The guys that Manny has been facing lately haven’t been big enough names for him to reach one million+ buys like he routinely did in the last during his best years. Thurman had been out of boxing for too long for Manny and him to bring in over 1 million buys. Had this fight taken place in 2017, it might have done a lot better numbers than it did.
Pacquiao still a big PPV attraction
The 500,000 buys might not sound like a lot to the hardcore boxing fans that have been following the sport for 10 or more years, but nowadays, that’s a lot of buys. With illegal streams everywhere for boxing PPV events, it’s difficult for the fights to bring in the same kind of numbers as they did a decade ago. At this point, 500,000 is quite good, and it shows that Pacquiao is still a large draw at the age of 40.
Pacquiao (62-7-2, 39 KOs) defeated Thurman (29-1, 21 KOs) by a 12 round split decision to win his WBA Super World welterweight title at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Manny won by the scores 114-112, 114-112, and 114-113 for Thurman. It was a great fight with Pacquiao starting strong in the first five rounds, and then Thurman taking over in the middle part of the fight. Pacquiao came back in the championship rounds to get the win.
“Sources tell the @TheAthleticBOX the Manny Pacquiao-Keith Thurman FOX PPV generated in the neighborhood of 500,000 buys, a success given pre-fight projections #PacquiaoThurman,” said @MikeCoppinger.
Roach: Mayweather fight possible for Pacquiao
“I think the old Manny is back,” said trainer Freddie Roach to ESPN. “I love to see him attack. He never knocked anyone down with a right hand before this fight, but he’s been working on it. In this fight, the first round knockdown [of Thurman] was with the right hand. He’s got a lot more confidence from working on that shot. Manny will decide who he fights and when. He won’t fight again until probably next year. In my opinion, I think Floyd Mayweather will come to the table. If he doesn’t, there are a lot of other good 140 pound fighters out there. I think he’s [Mayweather] scared of Manny. The performance was so good from Manny. He showed everything; offense and defense. Maybe he needs more defense work.
The thing is, Manny’s fire power was 100 percent. It’s a lot better than in the Floyd fight. He had to have surgery. It was a bad injury,” said Roach about Pacquiao having an injured right shoulder for his fight with Mayweather in 2015. “He came back from it. Manny has the formula that can beat Mayweather, but he has to fight a very, very precise fight. The game plan has to be down to every inch, and not miss a shot. Manny is very clever like he was in this fight. When Manny is aggressive, he fights very well,” said Roach.
It would be great news if Mayweather were to come back to fight Pacquiao, because there are a lot of boxing fans that want to see those two fight it out one more time. Of all the fighters in the welterweight division, Pacquiao is likely the only one that Mayweather would come back for.