Despite Bob Arum’s public call to boycott the Mayweather-Maidana fight on Saturday night, boxing fans would still buy pay-per-view (PPV) and gate tickets to watch this weekend’s biggest boxing event. Arum, who promotes Manny Pacquiao, criticized Mayweather’s choice of Marcos Maidana as Mayweather’s next opponent, saying the fight is a mismatch as shown in the 12-1 fight odds two weeks before the fight. Promotional materials of the Mayweather-Maidana fight that were plastered all over the MGM Grand Garden Hotel and annex buildings a few days before his own Pacquiao-Bradley fight last April 12, triggered Arum’s call to boycott Mayweather’s fight card. Read more. It appears that despite Arum’s call, Mayweather will most likely hit at least one million PPV buys and over $12 million in gate receipts.
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There varying reasons why this Saturday’s Mayweather-Maidana fight card will still be a success both in gate and on PPV. First and foremost is the quality undercard Mayweather has put together to boost sales for the weekend event. Mayweather knows that Maidana has a limited capability of attracting people to watch the fight because of his being a greenhorn in the PPV market. Mayweather has been criticized for ducking worthy opponents while choosing less competitive fighters to secure his unblemished professional fight record. Although Maidana has won four successive fights since losing to Devon Alexander in 2012, boxing experts and fight analysts are saying that Maidana will hardly win a single round against Mayweather. Read more: What Mayweather did to sell the fight was to put together a powerhouse supporting event that includes Golden Boy Promotions (GBP) fighters.
Ronald Martinez, Getty/AFP/File Marcos Maidana celebrates after defeating Adrien Broner to become the new WBA Welterweight Title champion in San Antonio, Texas on December 14, 2013 Like this image At least three major fights featuring world titlists in their respective divisions have been included in the undercard. These include: Amir Khan vs Luis Collazo, Adrien Broner vs Carlos Molina, J’Leon Love vs Marco Antonio Periban. Secondly, a good number of fans who are not Mayweather supporters will either watch the fight at the MGM Grand or on PPV to see Mayweather suffer his first loss. Mayweather knows that a mediocre undercard won’t help in generating the revenue for what Arum described as a mismatch and a fight not worth watching. Putting together a powerhouse undercard is another brilliant move by the unbeaten champion to maintain his PPV supremacy.
