By Ronnie Nathanielsz
The pay-per-view numbers for the "Fire Power" showdown between pound-for-pound phenomenon Manny Pacquiao and WBO welterweight champion Miguel Cotto may reach 1.5 million buys.
That’s the view of Top Rank promoter Bob Arum after the early numbers came in for last Saturday’s fight at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas which Pacquiao won by an impressive 12th round TKO.
Puerto Rican reporter Rey Colon of "El Vocero" claimed the mega-fight drew approximately 2 million buys and around $120 million in revenues.
Arum said he had "pretty much the final numbers" for Puerto Rico alone which he said "set a record" by surpassing the previous record of 80,000 for the Felix "Tito" Trinidad – Oscar De La Hoya fight. Arum said the Pacquiao-Cotto fight did a little bit more than 110,000.
Stating it was only a guess, Arum figured the fight would do around 1.3 million although he said there were no numbers from New York, Pennsylvania which are big points, adding that he didn’t even have any California numbers although he had the figures for San Diego and Hawaii "which were good numbers."
Arum recalled that the Pacquiao-De La Hoya fight last December did 1.25 million and in the East "so far we are doing 40 percent better and in the West we are doing about 10 percent less."
The astute Top Rank promoter said "we are happy because we did well over a million homes and I think it will be closer to 1.5 million."
