After much anticipation (at least in some quarters) it was announced a few days ago that a bout between Oscar De La Hoya and Manny Pacquiao would not be taking place on December 6th, as ‘The Pac Man’ balked at accepting a 70-30 split on all revenues from that promotion.
In the aftermath, it was announced that Golden Boy Promotions would now focus on Sergio Mora getting the December assignment (provided he gets past Vernon Forrest once again on September 13th) and Bob Arum said he would now work towards a bout with Humberto Soto for Pacquiao.
This scenario placates the hardcore purists. Mora is a natural 154-pounder who would come with a major title belt. Pacquiao would be facing someone his own size and a respected fighter in Humberto Soto. The critics of the proposed De La Hoya-Pacquiao bout believed that this was once again another case of ‘The Golden Boy’ picking on a smaller guy with little chance of winning. And the growing legion of Oscar-haters think that he is being De La Greedy for not budging on the 70-30 split.
All of that may be true.
But Pacquiao – or whoever decided to turn down the proposal – in making the principled stand, is making a horrible business decision. It’s very simple; would you rather be at 30/70 with De La Hoya or 90-10 with Soto? Pacquiao is guaranteed to pocket around $10-12 million should he climb up to 147 and face De La Hoya. He’d have to face Soto – who’d be a live, live ‘dog against the Filipino icon – three or four times to make that amount.
When you make that much money – does a fighter ever really ‘lose’? There’s a reason why they call it prizefighting. And facing De La Hoya is the ultimate win-win situation. The same can not be said for facing Soto right now.
Math has never been so simple. Face De La Hoya for a minimum of $10 mil or Soto for a fraction of that math. You don’t have to be EF Hutton to know what advice to give.
And his trainer, Freddie Roach, agrees.
“I knew that the offer was a 70-30 split and that’s better than the Mayweather deal,” he said, referring to his split with De La Hoya last May. “Mayweather made over $20 million and Manny’s more popular worldwide. You’ve got the Philippines pushing the fight and so forth, he draws much more people than I think Mayweather does. The thing is, it’s a great fight and it’s a great payday, of course. At 70-30, if it does as well as Mayweather, you’re talking about over $20 million.
“I mean, compared to fighting Humberto Soto? Who’s going to watch the Soto fight? You can’t get a more quality opponent than Soto for the fans to watch against the number one pound-for-pound fighter in the world?”
Make no doubt about it, Soto is a quality foe, one that can absolutely make life difficult for Roach’s charge. The problem, in all honesty, is that he’s simply too much of a threat for the kind of money they would make in comparison to a De La Hoya fight, which would have been watched by the masses. Pacquiao-Soto struggles to break 250,000 buys.
After all the talk of a possible bout with De La Hoya, facing Soto could be considered a major buzzkill by Pacquiao.
“There will definitely be a letdown, of course,” admitted Roach, who will tell you that his fighter?s level of focus fluctuates fight to fight. “You’re facing one of the idols of boxing, one of the older idols. And the biggest thing for me is that I would never take this fight for the money. I would take it for the win. Because of what it would do for Manny’s career (beating Oscar). It’ll make him a superstar, it’ll make the Hatton fight realistic, it’ll make a Mayweather fight realistic – because I know he’ll come out of retirement to fight Pacquiao.”
Roach has gone as far as to say he’ll forfeit his training fee if Pacquiao doesn’t defeat De La Hoya. Joe Namath has nothing on this guy. He’s willing to give a money back guarantee.
“If you can’t get the pound-for-pound fighter a better opponent than Soto, c’mon, 70-30 is a great deal and let’s face it, Oscar’s the draw; 70-30 of everything, I mean it’s a better deal than Mayweather got because Mayweather after the first million (buys), it went down to 80-20. So the thing is, if Manny doesn’t fight Oscar, he should sit out.”
Which may be a possibility since most of the dates for the rest of the year have already been slotted on the major networks, although there is some talk of Top Rank distributing Pacquiao-Soto by themselves.
Defending De La Hoya and his promotional company is like sticking up for Microsoft or Wal-Mart at times, and while on the surface making a commodity like Pacquiao take such a split seems heavy-handed (as it’s not that far off from your standard purse-bid distribution) but if you take into consideration that Pacquiao’s last pay-per-view outing versus David Diaz did less than 200,000 buys and has never had any event break the 400,000 barrier, an argument can be made that perhaps what Oscar is offering is rather generous (Of course, not taking into account the physical risk and disadvantages he would be facing).
Roach, who pushed for this fight hard, attempted to talk to Pacquiao a few days ago. But if – and when – he reaches his fighter in the Philippines, the message is clear. “I just want to tell him, does he understand what?s on the table? And is the comparison between fighting Oscar and Soto worth the risk? And you know what? I still say Manny knocks Oscar out. I don’t care what anybody says. I know Oscar used to be my friend, he’s maybe mad at me now because I say my guy can knock him out, but I feel that. And I think this makes Manny a superstar and gets big, big fights for him the future. He’ll be bigger than ever. He needs challenges like this to stay on top.”
And it’s not a bad payday, either.
LAST DANCE
Anyone get the feeling that no matter what Oscar says (which is usually shaky) that December 6th will not be his final performance as a professional prizefighter? Think about it – not only does the possibility of more De La Hoya pay-per-views keep HBO in check for his company, it’s not like the well has run dry when it comes to marketable opponents.
Let’s say hypothetically Mora gets past Forrest and faces Oscar on December 6th, and then De La Hoya defeats ‘The Latin Snake’, these names would be viable opponents for ‘the Golden Boy’ in 2009….
– Manny Pacquiao: Why not? If he heeds Roach’s advice and eschews a bout with Soto and comes to his senses, he’d be ready and willing to go in the spring of ’09.
– Shane Mosley: From what I’m told there were talks last week for a third installment of this rivalry inside the Golden Boy offices. And should Forrest upset the applecart, don’t count out this matchup for December.
– Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.: Don’t put it past them. They could dub this, ‘Like Father, Like Son.’
– Floyd Mayweather: Any fight that did the business it did just screams for a rematch. And does anyone really believe he’s retired?
– Ricky Hatton: Provided he gets past Paulie Malignaggi in November, a De La Hoya-Hatton bout is gargantuan in Manchester, England.
TJ TORNADO
I’m sure many of you noticed the glaring omission of Antonio Margarito. Well, in one word, the word that sums up his chances of getting De La Hoya: Fughetaboutit.
Margarito’s co-manager Sergio ‘S-Talker’ Diaz (and you know what the ‘S’ stands for) has gone on the verbal offensive recently. Hey, what harm is there in losing a fight you had absolutely no chance at attaining in the first place?
So with that in mind, they have released their own Archie Moore-style campaign in goading a fighter to step to the table by releasing this cartoon this week……Click here to view it.
WEEKEND FLURRIES
Roach agrees with me on likelihood of this being De La Hoya’s last bout. “I don’t think it’ll be Oscar’s last bout (versus Mora). But the thing is, Pacquiao will be his last fight because he will get knocked out….Can Vernon Forrest possibly win a decision on September 13th?….Anyone else get the feeling that if Murad Muhammad were still promoting Pacquiao the 70-30 deal would’ve been made? Of course, out of that 30, Pacquiao’s split of that would be about 5-95. But that’s a whole ‘nother story….MSG will be airing ‘Orthodox Stance’, a look at the career path of welterweight Dmitriy Salita on Monday night at 8 pm….Can you believe it’s less than two weeks till college football? I like the Georgia Bulldogs, but I wonder if their schedule is too tough to win it all…..After it was all said and done, I think ESPN2’s ‘Wednesday Night Fights’ had a very good 2008….US heavyweight Deontay Wilder is raw, but he is an intriguing prospect…..
