By the end of 2008, boxing will have most likely lost its two biggest draws. Boxing’s greatest cash cow, Oscar de la Hoya insists his exit plan calls for only one more fight this year, at which point he will join the sport’s second biggest PPV star, Floyd Mayweather Jr, in retirement.
Whether or not either or both of they decide to permanently remain on the sidelines remains to be seen. Boxing needs to treat it, at the very least, as a warning sign that new blockbusters are needed.
They needn’t look any further than Las Vegas for the first contestant to fill the void.
Manny Pacquiao has already replaced Mayweather at the top spot of many pound-for-pound lists, if only by default. He’s already putting up superstar numbers, and not just by lower weight standards; each his past five HBO-promoted pay-per-view cards have pulled in at least 300,000 buys, with the 400,000 buys for the Juan Manuel Marquez rematch this past March setting an all-time box office record for fights below welterweight.
It’s worth noting, though, that in all five shows he had something going for him; a notable dance partner in the other corner. Even if you want to argue that Marquez is not as big of a draw as Erik Morales or Marco Antonio Barrera, there’s no denying that the intrigue behind he and Pacquiao settling a four-year old score had everything to do with the fight being a huge success, physically and financially.
But now comes the hard part; Pacquiao proving he can be a draw on his own.
The only pay-per-view the Filipino phenom has headlined that didn’t feature a major attraction or one of the sport’s best on the other side of the promotion was his April 2007 encounter with then-unbeaten Jorge Solis. It also happened to be one of only two fights among his last eight (excluding this weekend) to not be carried by HBO or its pay-per-view affiliate, with Top Rank independently distributing the Solis telecast.
That it drew in the neighborhood of 200,000 with HBO’s marketing dollars available says a lot of Pacquiao’s drawing power. In comparison, a Miguel Cotto-headlined independent PPV never cracked 100,000; in fact, neither of his two big HBO PPV cards last year met expectations, never mind exceeding them.
It’s also worth noting, however, that appearing on the Pacquiao-Solis under card were two of Mexico’s biggest current draws in Jorge Arce and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.
Neither will appear on this weekend’s card. While David Diaz is a better known commodity that Jorge Solis, the relatively obscure under card makes the Vegas show (Saturday, 9PM ET/PT) something of a tough sell beyond the main event. With some cards, a strong main event is enough.
The only problem is, few consider this a strong main event.
Odds on Pacquiao winning a title in a fifth weight class (linear claims at 112, 126 and 130; alphabet at 122 and potentially 135 this weekend) have raised to more than 5-1 on some sports books, a combination of respect for Pac-Man being regarded as the sport’s best, and Diaz rarely receiving his just due among the masses. A win this weekend would certainly raise David’s Q-rating, but that would only help pay-per-view numbers for his next event.
This one remains a tough sell according to several inside sources, at least for the moment. While fans were tripping over one another to attend his last few Vegas showings, there doesn’t figure to be any box office records set by the time this one is through.
That said, discussion of Pacquiao’s box office potential shouldn’t be limited to the final tally pulled in this weekend. After all, it took years for Floyd Mayweather to put himself on the PPV map, and not until 2007 did his marketability truly match his boxing talents. Even with his success in the ring and at the box office against Arturo Gatti, the fights that preceded and followed featured more empty seats than fans filling them.
Roy Jones for years served as the sport’s very best fighter, but ironically his rise in popularity coincided with his decline in skills. It took for his going all the way up to heavyweight to become a major draw, pulling in over 600,000 pay-per-view buys in his win over John Ruiz. The combined totals of his trilogy with Antonio Tarver cleared well over 1 million purchases, as well as a St. Pete Times Forum stuffed to the gills for the rubber match.
Earlier this year, he and Felix Trinidad held enough name value to rack up what still remains far and away 2008’s best-selling PPV, with the 500,000-buy tally enough to leave Jones as the front-runner for a clash with Joe Calzaghe in the fall.
Prior to Ruiz, Roy’s fights progressively improved in ticket sales, though none of his pay-per-view bouts even registered when the year’s top selling events were discussed.
Twice in his career was Bernard Hopkins involved in the top selling pay-per-view event of a particular year. Both just happened to feature the biggest two names in the sport, Oscar de la Hoya (2004) and Felix Trinidad three years prior.
Take away those two, and the rest of his events rarely did better than fall in line with the rest of the pack. His rematch with Jermain Taylor surpassed that of the first fight, in which Hopkins’ ten-year middleweight reign came to an end.
His December 2003 defense against William Joppy came a top a card marketed by Don King as a five-title fight extravaganza. Yet his main event bout was instead given the walk-out bout treatment, with much of the crowd searching for the exit shortly after the conclusion of the preceding fight between Cory Spinks and Ricardo Mayorga.
Hopkins’ past two PPV’s ? against Antonio Tarver and Winky Wright ? drew 330,000 and 315,000, respectively, but drew dismal ticket sale for his most recent fight, a 12-round split decision loss against Joe Calzaghe.
Poorly attended fights was the storyline for much of Hopkins’ record-setting title reign; while among the sport’s best and, for a time, its most sympathetic figure while in pursuit of big fights, the fame and fortune didn’t even come within sniffing distance of his talents.
Pacquiao has a major head start over all of the aforementioned in that he’s already established himself among the sport’s biggest draws before being named its best fighter (though some will argue he might be behind Calzaghe regarding to the latter).
With the sport in search of new heroes, chances are that beginning with this weekend, how well he performs at the box office will ? in the minds of many – matter more than how he fares in the ring.
Jake Donovan is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America and the Tennessee Boxing Advisory Board. Comments/questions can be submitted to [email protected] .
