By Chris Williams: Top Rank promoter Bob Arum is practically gushing over the initial tickets sales for the May 7th bout between Manny Pacquiao mismatch. “Incredible, simply incredible,” Arum said in an article at Philboxing.com. 16,000 tickets were sold for fight that matches Pacquiao, a fighter in his prime, facing a 39-year-old Mosley, who left his prime in the rear-view mirror 7 or 8 years ago. My question is the huge surge of tickets solely because of Pacquiao or are boxing fans excited about Pacquiao facing the shot Mosley?
Let’s not kid ourselves about Mosley. He’s never been a pay-per-view star. He’s done well in fights against Oscar De La Hoya, but he’s never been a huge PPV attraction when not being put in with a big star that’s across from him. I think that Pacquiao would draw huge PPV and ticket numbers even if Arum were to turn around and put Pacquiao back in with his little known fighter Joshua Clottey, who Arum incredibly matched Pacquiao against last year in one of the most boring fights I’ve seen in my life.
But at this point, it really doesn’t matter who Pacquiao faces. He’s going to bring in big numbers all by himself. Arum says he doesn’t want to put Pacquiao in with a lot of obscure fighters because that lessens his marketability, but you also don’t want to keep putting Pacquiao in with shot fighters, either. Arum already matched Pacquiao against Antonio Margarito, who many people think was shot at the time he was matched with Pacquiao. The way Margarito looked before the fight, it’s hard to argue that he wasn’t shot.
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