They packed the newly built Dallas Cowboys stadium. The stage set, lights shining, and 50,994 fans chanting, Manny Pacquiao and Joshua Clottey left the record-breaking crowd wishing it were football season.
With respect to boxing, which has seen an increase in Pay-Per-View sales over the past few years, I for one am getting sick and tired of watching two incredible athletes dance around a ring for 12-rounds.
Sorry to say, but I already received my full dosage of this with the ice skating competitions during the winter Olympics.
The largest PPV sales boxing has ever grossed was the 2007 fight between the “golden boy” Oscar De La Hoya and Floyd Mayweather Jr. The fight received 2.4 million buys, which is just a little over the number two Lewis-Tyson fight that brought in 1.98 million buys. These numbers by no means are shabby, but boxing is missing two elements, consistency and improvement.
“The way that we’ve built this business, we’ve got guys that make millions of dollars, guys that make hundreds of thousands of dollars, guys that make you know 60, 70, 80 thousand dollars three times a year, the money is spread out between all the fighters, not just a handful of guys at the top,” owner of the UFC, Dana White, said.
For 2009 the UFC reported 7,970,000 PPV buys. Three out of the top five most purchased events in the calendar year were UFC fights; the other two were boxing matches. UFC 100 had 1.5 million PPV purchases, which featured Brock Lesnar vs. Frank Mir. By the way, Lesnar is a former wrestler of the WWE. Coming in at number two was the Pacquiao-Cotto fight at 1.25 million buys.
Every fight, which had at least one title fight on the card for the UFC, did at least 500,000 in PPV sales. Cards that hosted two champions sold at least 800,000. UFC 100 was not only the biggest for the year but also the biggest in UFC history. Time after time Dana White and the UFC have created what is the drama of the “barbaric” street fighting UFC. While UFC never disappoints to find the two biggest superstars to hop in the octagon, boxing can’t even get their two biggest stars to agree on drug testing.
Talks of a fight between Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather were quickly shot down after disagreements regarding the drug testing procedures led to the fight being indefinitely postponed. The hypothetical match was estimated to have surpassed the record 2.4 million PPV buys set in 2007.
“You ask me, I think they’re both scared of each other,” Dunwell said. “It should happen. They could make so much money, and it’s good for boxing. … That’s why boxing is going down. … MMA is coming up,” boxer Simeon Dunwell (11-1, 3 KO).
In conclusion, boxing will continue to sabotage itself, and the UFC will continue on its ever-increasing path to complete superiority in PPV sales, drama, and actual fighting.
