Arum: Mayweather-Pacquiao 2 will be 2nd biggest PPV fight in history

By Boxing News - 11/08/2016 - Comments

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By Allan Fox: Manny Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum believes that a rematch between him and Floyd Mayweather Jr. will wind up being the second biggest pay-per-view fight in the history of the sport if the match gets made. The previous fight between Pacquiao and Mayweather brought in 4.7 million buys on pay-per-view last year in May 2015.

If the rematch between Pacquiao and Mayweather brings in half the numbers as last time, it would be in the 2.3 million buy range. That wouldn’t make it the second biggest pay-per-view fight in history of boxing. The second fight was the Mayweather vs. Oscar De La Hoya fight in 2007, which brought in 2.4 million buys.

That record lasted eight years until the Mayweather vs. Pacquiao fight in 2015. Mayweather’s fight against Saul “Canelo” Alvarez in 2013 brought in 2.2 million buys, bringing it close to breaking the old record of 2.4 million buys. It didn’t quite get to the level that it needed. If Canelo were a little more well-known at the time to the casual boxing fans, it would have broken the record.

Arum is hopeful that a second fight between Mayweather and Pacquiao can take place. One thing that gave Arum hope was the 39-year-old Mayweather showing up to watch Pacquiao’s fight last Saturday night. Arum believes that’s a good sign that Mayweather will be open to a second fight between him and Pacquiao. The boxing public wants to see the rematch, and Pacquiao wants the fight. The only thing that is keeping the rematch from being made is Mayweather giving the green light.

Arum said this to tmz.com about his thoughts on the Mayweather vs. Pacquiao rematch:

“I think Manny looks really a log better now,” said Arum. “I think this time I give my guy Pacquiao a hell of a lot better chance [to beat Mayweather]. Manny looked really good in the fight with Jessie Vargas. I would have to say it’s more favorable than not the fight will happen. Mayweather was at the fight, and he seemed to really enjoy the fight, so I’m optimistic the fight can happen, but I’m not certain of it. I haven’t talked to Floyd or his people yet. I think Floyd will fight on percentage. He’s ready to rely on the public just like Manny is. I don’t think this will be bigger than the last fight, but I think it will be the second biggest of all time,” said Arum.

Getting the Mayweather vs. Pacqquiao fight negotiated will be tough work, but they’ve got time. If Arum could start working on negotiating the fight with Mayweather and Pacquiao right now, he could potentially have the fight ready to go by April of next year, which is when we could be seeing Pacquiao back inside the ring again. That’s more than enough time to negotiate and market the fight. It’s not going to take a lot of time to promote the fight to the boxing public, because the boxing fans will want to see that fight like crazy.

Like last time, it didn’t take much promotional work to attract the fight fans to purchase the fight on pay-per-view. All Arum and Mayweather’s management team had to do was mention the fight and air some specials on HBO and Showtime boxing for the fans to buy it on PPV. However, if there’s one thing that would be good for them to change the second time around, it’s the uindercard. They need to include a much better undercard than they did last time, because the undercard was awful for the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight.

This is what the fans were stuck watching for the Mayweather-Pacquiao undercard last year:

Vasyl Lomachenko vs. Gamalier Rodriguez

Jesse Hart vs. Mike Jimendez

Leo Santa Cruz vs. Jose Cayetano

Brad Solomon vs. Adrian Granados

Christopher Pearson vs. Said El Harrak

It makes you wonder what the promoters for the Mayweather-Pacquiao card did with all the money that was made from the high ticket prices and extremely high pay-per-view prices. It appears they didn’t take the money and turn around and use it to include a great undercard, because the fights on the undercard were all mismatches from top to bottom. Even the main event was a mismatch.

A second fight between Mayweather and Pacquiao would be the shot in the arm that the boxing world needs right now. With Canelo and his promoters at Golden Boy dragging their feet about wanting to take on dangerous knockout artist Gennady “GGG” Golovkin, there aren’t any big fights right now to catch the public’s imagination. Canelo is supposedly the replacement for Mayweather in being the new pay-per-view kind, but Golden Boy has unwittingly stunted his boxing career by matching him too carefully. They’ve done things in reverse.

Normally to make a star, you match the fighter against top talents until the fans just want to see the fighter. Canelo has been matched against a lot of weaker fighters, and it’s kept him from becoming as popular as he should be. That’s why the sport needs Mayweather to make the news, because he’s willing to fight the best. He’s not someone that takes on a bunch of older fighters or fighters that are over-the-hill that he has a huge weight advantage over like we’re seeing with Canelo.

If Mayweather doesn’t come back for the Pacquiao fight, then you’ve got to figure that he’s finished and won’t be coming back at all. There isn’t going to be a fight between Mayweather and UFC star Conor McGregor, as much as Mayweather would like that fight to happen. That fight is not going to happen. McGregor is with the UFC, and he reportedly wants too much money for a fight between him and Mayweather to ever happen. Pacquiao is Mayweather’s best option for him to get a big payday. He’s not going to fight Canelo Alvarez a second time, and he’s not going to fight Gennady “GGG” Golovkin either.

It’s going to be up to Mayweather whether he wants to face Pacquiao a second time. If he’s not interested in the fight, then the fans are likely going to see Pacquiao facing unbeaten Terence Crawford next in April. While some boxing fans compare Crawford to a younger and stronger Mayweather, you can’t compare him in terms of fans that follow his fights.

Pacquiao-Crawford would be lucky to break 500,000 buys. It’s a better fight than Pacquiao vs. Tim Bradley 3, which brought in 400,000 buys, but it’s not a huge fight. There aren’t millions of Crawford fans out there in the U.S that would be willing to pay to see hi fight Pacquiao.

“Like everyone else, I’m guessing there will be a rematch. He did come to the fight,” Arum said to espn.com. “I give it 75 percent. Do I know it’s going to happen? No. Do I know if Floyd wants the fight? No. I know nothing more than the public knows at this point and what I observed. It means the tension is gone. The bad words are not there. If the fight does happen it will be easier to make.”

Arum is going to need to pick up the phone to try and contact Mayweather to find out if he can make the fight happen. It’s no good if Arum is going to wait until Pacquiao and Mayweather bump into each other at another basketball game before the fight happens because they may never see each other again.