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By Rick Reeno
Last Saturday night at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas was a very successful event for Top Rank. WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao was a one-man show in the ticket selling department. Pacquiao's opponent that night, former welterweight champion Joshua Clottey, has never been a big name or a big draw in any boxing market. Pacquiao-Clottey still managed to draw a crowd of nearly 51,000 fans [50,994], which is the third largest American audience to attend a boxing event in the last 17 years.
Top Rank's CEO Bob Arum spoke with BoxingScene.com on Friday. He admits the marketing of the event was tricky because most boxing fans were not familiar enough with Clottey. The selling point of the pay-per-view - called "The Event" by Top Rank - was the actual event itself.
"With [Miguel] Cotto vs. Pacquiao, we were selling the fight. Here we were selling the fighter and that's difficult. Pacquiao fighting in Cowboys Stadium, that was the sell. But we did great numbers at the gate, we did great with closed circuit and great pay-per-view revenue," Arum told BoxingScene.com.
"It did just as well as when Pacquiao fought Hatton. You have to really give Pacquiao credit because there were people getting excited because it was Pacquiao fighting in Cowboys Stadium."
While the pay-per-view numbers are not final, Arum believes the final buyrate figure will exceed 700,000.
[The numbers are] very, very strong. We don't have all of the reports, so it's not official, but I believe we are going to exceed 700,000. I certainly believe that based on the numbers we do have," Arum said.
