Last year I decided to dine at one of the most anticipated restaurant openings in my general area. The build-up had been monumental as even the most skeptical of restaurant critics had deemed this establishment as potentially being able to change the entire dining experience.
Nothing but the best of the best was what it was touted to be.
The best food, drinks, service, atmosphere, music, d?cor, ice sculptures, rare birds, Dave Chappelle chained to the bar cracking jokes 24/7? etc. etc. etc. I basically expected to walk into the restaurant and start convulsing uncontrollably as my 8 senses (u normal mongrels have only 5) would go into overdrive and my system would automatically shut down ala Windows Vista.
Unfortunately? the business did not live up to the expectations.
I found it overpriced, extremely pretentious, and Dave Chappelle was nowhere to be found.
In essence, what was sold to me and what was delivered in terms of the product failed to live up to everything it had been touted to be.
Needless to say, while the restaurant itself didn?t dissuade me from continuing to eat, I never even thought twice to give this overly hyped shit hole a second chance. An additional repercussion to the letdown is that all the critics and writers who had ?sold? the public on their expertise and their ability to spot desirable eating establishments now were viewed as con artists who didn?t know their noggin from their culos.
The name of this restaurant that I am referring to was called Mayweather-De la Hoya? ?The World Awaits?.
So now what?
Boxing is once again attempting to sell a similar variation of the same restaurant being that the menu is predominantly based on the same dish in the form of the ?Golden Boy?. The powers that be seem to feel as though a little Asian fusion in the form of the ?Pacman? can inject the proper flavors in order to revive and revitalize the establishment.
Burritos filled with topsilog anyone? How about a jackfruit taco?
Let me say one thing? in seeing plenty of restaurants come and go over the years, it is extremely difficult to alter or change the reputation of these money pits once they?ve been labeled negatively.
As for the original topic of whether Pacquiao-De la Hoya can outdo Mayweather-De la Hoya in terms of generating revenue? it will be a tough.
Virtually impossible to be exact.
Not to get completely racial here at BoxingConfidential but here are the statistics:
Black Americans ? 39,000,000 in the US Filipino Americans ? 4,000,000 in the US Mexican Americans ? somewhere between 2 and 20 billion in the US
Boxing is a racially divided sport. There?s no way around it.
In general, the majority of fans that support a certain fighter tend to fall somewhere in the region of that particular fighter?s ethnicity.
Once again? in general. It?s just what I?ve seen my entire life as a boxing fan.
Don?t go getting all politically correct on me people.
For all the flack that Floyd Mayweather Jr. gets in terms of lacking a fanbase, I truly do believe that many black Americans supported the ?Pretty Boy? leading up to the De la Hoya fight. While I highly doubt that it was comparable to the amount of support that Manny Pacquiao receives from Filipinos across the states, it doesn?t need to be. All he needed was ten percent of the black population in order to match what I assume is Manny?s predominant fan base here in America.
Looking at the past numbers for Pacquiao, Mayweather, De la Hoya, and company are as follows:
Mayweather-Gatti 365,000 Mayweather-Judah 350,000 Mayweather-Baldomir 325,000
Pacquiao-Morales ? 350,000 Pacquiao- Morales II ? 360,000 Pacquiao-Morales III ? 350,000 Pacquiao-Barrera II ? 350,000 Pacquiao-Marquez II ? 400,000 Pacquiao-Diaz ? 200,000
Morales-Barrera II ? 296,000 Morales-Barrera III ? 310,000 Barrera-Juarez II ? 165,000 Barrera-Marquez ? 225,000
De la Hoya-Sturm ? 380,000 De la Hoya-Hopkins ? 1,000,000 De la Hoya-Mayorga ? 925,000 De la Hoya-Mayweather Jr ? 2,400,000
In looking at all these figures, it is quite evident that it?s more than just Oscar De la Hoya?s name or Floyd Mayweather Jr.?s ability that drove the Pay-Per-View sales for their blockbuster but lackluster bout in May of 2007. It was the heavy marketing and promotion by HBO, Golden Boy Promotions, and all sponsors involved that created the media frenzy that led to the record shattering figure of 2.4 million purchases.
There?s nothing else that could explain the huge gap between De la Hoya?s figures against Floyd in comparison to that of everybody else.
While Manny Pacquiao has solidified himself as a decent, legitimate draw on the Pay-Per-View arm of HBO, it?s obvious that he needs a dance partner of equal or comparable caliber in order to generate solid figures.
To compare apples to apples, I tend to think that Carlos Baldomir and David Diaz were on similar levels of popularity when facing their superstar opponents (which was in essence, not very). While there is a good-sized gap between the pay-per-view sales for Mayweather-Baldomir and Pacquiao-Diaz, one must take note that there was no HBO produced countdown show for the latter.
These documentary style programs seemingly make a huge difference in terms of luring HBO subscribers into purchasing these events. Seriously? they do. There?s no way I would have purchased Mayweather-Baldomir had I not seen the countdown show.
So once again? back to the original topic at hand. Can Pacquiao-De la Hoya surpass the mystical number of 2.4 million?
Part II coming soon?
