Will Mayweather-Mosley reach 3 million PPV buys?

Will Mayweather-Mosley reach 3 million PPV buys? March 6th, 2010 By Chris Williams If the May 1st fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Shane Mosley fails to pick up interest from Hispanic boxing fans, will this fight be able to reach the 3 million pay-per-view mark that Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer has predicted for it? This is a fight that matches Mayweather, a fighter that doesn’t like to mix it up very much, against Mosley who has a crowd pleasing style of fighting that could bring in boxing fans from all nationalities in the U.S. Hispanic fans tend to want to see more entertaining fights, as George Willis of the New York Post points out and they could be turned off towards watching a fight involving Floyd Mayweather in particular because this fight is going to cost $49.95 to watch. The Mayweather-Mosley fight will do well regardless of whether a lot of Hispanic fans purchase the fight on pay-per view, but it might come up for short of Schaefer’s ambitious prediction for the fight. It’s certainly more than worthy of those kinds of numbers because Mayweather and Mosley could be the #1 and #2 fighters in the entire welterweight division. However, Mosley is 38-years-old, hasn’t fought in over a year, and hasn’t been involved in any mega fights in the past seven years since his last fight with Oscar De La Hoya in 2003. Mosley has continued fighting since then but he hasn’t had an opponent across from him like De La Hoya that made any of his fights huge PPV draws like the Mayweather bout will be on May 1st. Mosley has the exciting style that would attract Hispanic viewers, but he’s struggled in fights against Winky Wright and Miguel Cotto, losing to both fighters in the past seven years. Mosley probably won’t be enough on his own to draw Hispanic fans to want to put their money down in big numbers to watch Mayweather running around the ring trying to avoid getting hit all night long. That seems like a recipe for fan frustration rather than excitement. The fight will do well regardless of whether Hispanic fight fans show interest in the fight, but without them I can’t see the Mayweather-Mosley fight reaching the 3 million pay per view mark that Schaefer is predicting. Even if Golden Boy Promotions tries to market the fight to the Hispanic audience, I’m not sure they will show interest in this fight to help it reach the 3 million mark. It will take a better undercard that is currently put with this fight, and the focus would have to be more on the undercard than the main event, because the Mayweather-Mosley fight could be a stinker if Mayweather runs around the ring all night long.