The rumor floating around the web is that the amount of pay-per-view purchases for the Manny Pacquiao-Marco Antonio rematch titled ?Will to Not Get Knocked Out? has done roughly 350,000 households. It?s an interesting figure being that it shows that boxing is definitely changing it?s standard for what?s considered successful and what?s considered unsuccessful.
It?s been well known that the mega-fight between Oscar De la Hoya and Floyd Mayweather Jr. broke all previous pay-per-view records with 2.15 million purchases. This is roughly about six times the amount of households that reached into their back pockets in order to view Pacquiao-Barrera II. Of course the discrepancy in the amount of dollars spent in marketing both events was quite large. It doesn?t even consider the fact that the ?Golden Boy? is by far the top draw in the sport and somehow did 350,000 buys in fighting an overmatched Yory Boy Campos back in 2003.
Looking back at some of the recent pay-per-view events I think it?s safe to say that while comparing Pacquiao-Barrera II to De la Hoya-Mayweather in terms of sales is a bit unfair, the ?Pacman? coupled with a recognized Mexican champion is indeed successful at the box office.
Here are the figures for some of 2007?s most notable pay-per-views:
Juan Manuel Marquez-Marco Antonio Barrera – 225,000 Zab Judah-Miguel Cotto – 225,000 Bernard Hopkins-Winky Wright – 300,000
With all three of Pacquiao?s matches with Erik ?El Terrible? Morales hovering around the 350,000 mark, it seems as though anything above the 200,000 mark is considered a relative success? outside of anything involving Oscar.
While I expected the numbers to be just a tad bit higher due to the cancellation of not only the September 15 card headlined by Marquez-Juarez, but also the postponement of the toughman competition in Vargas-Mayorga, it?s still a fairly impressive number nonetheless. Considering that six out of Pacquiao?s last seven bouts have been on pay-per-view in addition to five out of Barrera?s last seven, it showed the strong and loyal fan bases of both men.
Will we be able to see the ?Pacman? off pay-per-view in the near future in order to expand his already growing legion of fanatics?
Who knows?
All I know is that it?s quite evident that Manny provides the vodka to Marley?s favorite beverage known as a ?Cape Cod.? Unfortunately someone must provide the cranberry juice and lime squeeze in the form of a tough combatant hailing from either Venezuela, Mexico, or Texico in order to sell with the big boys and I?m not referring to heavyweights.
That is unless? you prefer to simply drink your vodka quite neat or on the rocks.
In that case bring on Jorge Solis part deux.
