Bob Arum: We expect to exceed 1.3 million buys for Pacquiao-Margarito fight

[bongwater]

Bob Arum has seen them all. But the Hall of Fame promoter, known for his love for hyperbole, insists he is not exaggerating when asked about his target for the Nov. 13 showdown between Manny Pacquiao and Antonio Margarito.

“I am confident this fight will do well over the 1.3-million (pay-per-view) buys that Manny did against Oscar De La Hoya (in 2008),” said Arum on Saturday from Baguio, a few hours after arriving from Las Vegas.

Arum’s good vibes stem from Pacquiao last performance against Joshua Clottey last March that drew 700,000 buys considering that the Ghanaian slugger virtually has zero fanbase in the Texas area.

Arum and his stepdaughter Dena DuBoef were ferried to the City of Pines shortly after they touched down in Manila using the private plane of former Ilocos Sur Gov. Chavit Singson, a close friend of Pacquiao.

Arum will be in Baguio for a media day scheduled Monday and the Top Rank chief exudes optimism that the Pacquiao-Margarito battle at Cowboy Stadium will eventually become a landmark event.

“Ticket sales are really strong and almost all the floor seats have been sold,” said Arum, referring to the $700 tickets that usually are reserved for celebrities.

But Arum warns Pacquiao not to take Margarito, a huge underdog, lightly as he has been in informed that the Mexican is training like hell in Oxnard, California.

Meanwhile, Pacquiao will also host a media day at the Wild Card in Hollywood on Oct. 27, followed by Margarito holding his own the following day at the Lb For Lb Gym in Los Angeles.

Pacquiao flies to Dallas on board a private plane to be leased by Arum on Nov. 8.

http://mb.com.ph/articles/282559/aru...pacquiao-fight

[Rick Grimes]

I expect it doesn't, it will probably do less than Pac-Clottey. People want competitive fights not BS like this.

[ThePrince]

I expect it doesn't, it will probably do less than Pac-Clottey. People want competitive fights not BS like this.

How can anyone with half a brain say Pacquiao-Margarito will do less business than Pacquiao-Clottey? You can disagree with it doing 1.3 million because that is pretty optimistic, but NO WAY it does less than 700K, would be shocked if it did less than 900K. No matter what angle you look at it from, it makes absolutely no sense.

And 1 million people paid for B.S. and a noncompetitive fight when they bought Floyd-Marquez.

[Rick Grimes]

How can anyone with half a brain say Pacquiao-Margarito will do less business than Pacquiao-Clottey? You can disagree with it doing 1.3 million because that is pretty optimistic, but NO WAY it does less than 700K, would be shocked if it did less than 900K. No matter what angle you look at it from, it makes absolutely no sense.

And 1 million people paid for B.S. and a noncompetitive fight when they bought Floyd-Marquez.

The only reason 1 million paid for the Mayweather fight is because he was retired for 2 years, people know this is a BS fight, they knew Clotttey would be BS but as the old saying goes fool me once shame on you, fool me twice......

[quick reply]

STOP PAC-Floyd Contest

Floyd is gone, let us pray for him......

No one near as popular as PACMAN by now, so stop mentioning the name of the past..

[ThePrince]

The only reason 1 million paid for the Mayweather fight is because he was retired for 2 years, people know this is a BS fight, they knew Clotttey would be BS but as the old saying goes fool me once shame on you, fool me twice......

people bought Mayweather-Marquez because of 24/7 and the hype that always creates. Without it, that fight would've been lucky to do half that. It was a bull**** fight, shameless and blatant cherry-picking at its worst (or best I guess). Absolutely nothing compelling about that match except JMM drinking p*ss.

Same thing will happen here, 24/7 will kick off and the hype will run rampant. The names, the controversy, the david-goliath angle, the promise of an action fight, the controversy, etc already make it a great business proposition. But HBO has perfected the hype machine and they have a TON of material to work with to draw in viewers. Not to mention Pacquiao is in Nike commercials and is being featured on 60 minutes the week before the fight (60 minutes routinely does 10+ million viewers). My prediction is 1-1.2 mil buys.

[Phil Ivey]

Really? You talk about shame and b*ll**** fight without mentioning Pacquiao-Margarito?

[al-Xander]

It's very possible. When was the last time Manny fought?
Fans would be hungry for alternative fights like this. They
wanted Mayweather, instead of Margarito in there, but things
don't always work the way we want them to work.
Curiosity will make this fight big. Of course, a lot of people
would attempt to see this on streams, which are unreliable.
I wouldn't.

[Russian Crushin]

I tend to trust arum with his predictions. He said around 700K for clottey and it came to be just over 700K

[ИATAS]

I hope so. Been a poor year for PPV's.