Top Rank?s Bob Arum continues to surprise everybody and reinvent himself despite turning 79 years old in December last year.
He recently announced that Showtime, an affiliate of CBS, is carrying the pay per view side of Many Pacquiao?s fight against Shane Mosley.
On paper, Showtime is the little brother to HBO which, for more than a decade, was king of PPV boxing cards.
Showtime?s last PPV undertaking was, after all, in 2005 when they delivered the rematch of the late Diego Corales and Jose Luis Castillo.
Pacquiao?s last ten fights were carried by HBO with the last five fights generating an average of one million buys each.
So why leave HBO? Why throw away the old adage that if it ain?t broken, don?t fix it?
Flashback December last year. Arum proudly announced that Pacquiao has at least six good fights left before he retires, presumably by the end of 2013.
Floyd Mayweather Jr aside, Pacquiao has been the sport?s biggest draw after forcing Oscar de la Hoya into retirement by stopping the then boxing?s golden boy and biggest cash cow after eight rounds in 2008.
Arum could have contented himself with HBO who has been good with him and Pacquiao over the last three years. But the lure of getting Pacquiao into the mainstream US television audience is easily very tempting for Arum to dismiss.
CBS, along with ABC, NBC and TNT, is one of the television giants in the US with a potential audience reach of 150 million American households.
While Showtime is strictly cable, build up exposure of the fight by CBS could generate more interest, thereby more PPV buys, than the traditional audience reach of HBO sports.
This is a production coup, as far as Arum is concerned.
For Pacquiao, it is his crowning glory as boxing?s biggest draw if he can capitalize on the goodwill that CBS is offering them for the Mosley fight. If his May 7 date with the ageing Mosley draws at least 1.5 million PPV buys, his future fights are guaranteed to earn him enough money to bankroll his Senate run in 2016 and perhaps, as Arum predicted, a 2022 presidential bid if he keeps on winning and stop wining his lecherous circle of friends.
But I tip my hat off to Arum. He certainly knows how to squeeze every drop of the sponge that is Pacquiao. He knows how to make hay while the sun is shining.
It is a calculated double-edged move. Arum is pulling the plug from under bitter promotional rival Oscar de la Hoya who is HBO?s favorite boy while at the same time letting the mainstream US television audience know that he is still boxing?s most adroit promoter. After all, if you can deliver the Ali-Frazier Thrilla in Manila fight some 36 years ago and still be a force in boxing promotion, there is nothing you can?t deliver.
Perhaps even Mayweather may rethink himself soon and bring us back the biggest fight of the century (?).
