By Mark Vester
Former light heavyweight champion Antonio Tarver is doing plenty of media interviews with respect to his role as Mason Dixon in Rocky 6. In a recent conference call with the press, Tarver was asked about the sport of boxing being a very popular theme for movies, and if there is a crossover of new fans as a result. Tarver feels there is, but he only sees Oscar De La Hoya benefiting from the popularity of boxing.
"You know what? I would love to say that there's a crossover interest in boxing, but I mean when you look at the pay-per-view numbers that some of the biggest boxing stars have done as of late, only Oscar De La Hoya seemed to like...to be benefiting from the all these...the popularity of boxing," Tarver said.
Tarver can't understand why the distance is so far apart when comparing the buyrate numbers of other popular fighters in the sport and De La Hoya. He wonders if all of the pay-per-view buys are actually being registered when some of the buyrate numbers are released to the public.
"You know, guys like myself, Bernard Hopkins, Roy Jones, Winky Wright and Floyd Mayweather... I mean it seems like we can't crack the 300, 350, close to 400 number when it comes to pay-per-view buys. But when De La Hoya fights, he gets 800, 900, a million pay-per-view buys. I just don't understand the disparity in all of that. You know, and so it's confusing to me. Are they registering all the pay-per-view buys? I mean some times I question it," Tarver said.