HYPE MACHINE TO CRANK LAST 72 HRS.
Las Vegas, NV- While the training of Oscar De La Hoya and Manny Pacquiao winds down for their Saturday fight, the rhetoric has yet to peak. With Manny and Oscar set to weigh in together on Friday afternoon at 147 lbs. or less, the last promotional event prior to this will be today?s final press conference. One can expect the blogosphere to get some ?meaty quotes? as both Oscar and co-trainer Angelo Dundee will be spinning things his way.
EXPECT OUTLANDISH CLAIMS FROM BOB
Freddie Roach and Bob Arum will be Pacquiao?s talking heads. You can expect Roach to try and keep it real, and Arum, expect Bob to go overboard in his selling of the HBO Pay Per View event beginning at 6 PM PT on Saturday. Both Pac and Oscar are gentlemen of sorts, so I wouldn?t think any blows would be thrown until the first round Saturday night.
NO ?BAD GUY? IN THIS FIGHT
That being said, this ?good guy vs. good guy? fight as De La Hoya-Pacquiao is, they are sometime hard to sell. Like professional wrestling, there needs to be a ?heel? or a bad guy involved. It always helps, but in this instance the popularity of both fighters should make for a mega event. I?m thinking 1.5 million PPV buys. Manny would represent about 500,000, and Oscar should be able to pull in at least one million buys. Not trying to be redundant, but the fight should come in at #3 in PPV history, behind Floyd Mayweather-Oscar De La Hoya (2.4 million buys), and the ?Bite Fight? between Evander Holyfield and Mike Tyson II (1.9 million)
BAD ECONOMY TO IMPACT PPV BUYS?
My contact on PPV numbers say that the Joe Calzaghe-Roy Jones fight did something like 225,000 homes. U.S. based Mexicans account for about 1/3 of the folks buying boxing on PPV. They seem to be inclined to back Oscar (even if they haven?t in the past) as the fanatical Latinos want Oscar to dust Pacquiao because of Manny?s destruction of Mexican icons like Erik Morales and Marco Antonio Barrera. As for the economy impacting the PPV numbers, if the fight does 1.5 million buys, figure it would done 2 million or so. If the fight does any less, the blame will go on the economy, especially during the Holiday season.
FINAL NUMBERS WILL BE DAUNTING!
Both De La Hoya (39-5, 30 KOs) and Manny Pacquiao (47-3-2, 35 KOs) will reap tens of millions. If the fight does 1.5 million buys at $50 per it means $75 million in PPV. Doing the math, this is where we divide the $75 million at 50% for the Cable folks, and 50% for the promotion. Expect Oscar to pocket $25 million (minimum) and Pacquiao a paltry $15 million. As for the promoters, I?d expect both Top Rank and Golden Boy Promotions to bank nearly $20 million each.
