By Edward Chaykovsky
Jeff Mayweather, uncle of former five division world champion Floyd Mayweather Jr., believes the "haters" were the main reason for his nephew's successful run on pay-per-view for so many years.
Mayweather was a main event participant in the top three boxing pay-per-view events of all-time.
Against Manny Pacquiao in May 2015, there was a record shattering 4.6 million buys, and then 2.4 million buys against Oscar De La Hoya in 2007, and 2.2 million buys for his fight against Canelo Alvarez in 2013. Mayweather also packed in 1.5 million for Miguel Cotto in 2012, 1.4 million for Shane Mosley in 2010 and 1.25 million for Victor Ortiz in 2011. There were several others that either reached or were close to a million buys.
Mayweather retired from boxing in September 2015 after defeating Andre Berto over twelve rounds. He walked away with his undefeated record intact, with a 49-0 sum and 26 of those wins by knockout.
Since Mayweather walked away, not a single boxing pay-per-view has broken the 1 million buyrate barrier. The 2015 showdown between Cotto and Canelo came close with 900,000 buys - but since then no other boxing event has been able to come near the Cotto-Canelo buy number.
A lot of critics blame the Mayweather-Pacquiao event for chasing away boxing fans - because of the high purchase price of $99.99 for HD, the lack of action in the ring, and the post-fight controversy when it was immediately revealed that Pacquiao entered the contest with a shoulder injury.
Jeff Mayweather predicts that it's going to be a very long time before we see boxing events reaching the 1 million buy mark. He does praise Canelo as being a likely candidate to become a future pay-per-view powerhouse.
"Don’t get me wrong, the reason [the pay-per-view buy numbers are down] is Floyd [retiring] and [also because] no one can actually do Floyd’s numbers, no one. That era of boxing is probably going to be gone for a while, but you still have Canelo — who is about the only guy left that you can really do Pay-Per-View fights with. Of course there’s a few big fights to be made out there," Jeff told On The Ropes Boxing Radio.
"Floyd’s numbers were more from haters than it was from fans, because people didn’t want to miss a chance of seeing him get beaten, so they continued to spend money over and over, to the point where he never gave them the satisfaction of losing."
