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Manny Pacquiao destroys Ricky Hatton
By Zach Arnold | May 2, 2009
KO in R2. So much for Teddy Atlas and his prediction of Hatton winning. I think he may have been the only one in the sports media who made such a prediction.
Chris Mannix at Sports Illustrated has live commentary.
Update (5/4): Several reports in the British press state that Ricky Hatton is being encouraged to retire from boxing by his closest friends and family members. He will address his future in boxing later today.
Topics: Boxing, Media, Zach Arnold | 72 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
This has to be one of the VERY few times Teddy Atlas was ever wrong on a fight prediction. Seriosuly, he predicted that Mike Tyson would do something to get himself DQ’ed against Holyfield, and lo and behold! He bit Holyfield’s fucking ear TWICE! I saw the ppv, and Manny fucking destroyed Hatton. The Humberto Soto kayo over Benoit Gaudet was pretty mice too. Gaudet was way over his head by trading shots with Soto. He would have had a better chance of beating Soto if he outboxed him, but he had an ego (or he was worried about what the crowd thought, which ties in with ego) and he had to trade. This is a man who has seven KO wins in 21 wins.
What was great was that there were five televised fights (two 4 rounders, an eight rounder, and two 12 rounders). I hope this trend continues. Does anyone think the advent of American MMA and their no less than five televised fights a show (whether it be UFC, WEC, Strikeforce, etc.) have anything to do with this?
CHUCK. of couse mma did and will continue to even more in the future. i think we will even see 2 title fights or 2 superfights on 1 card along with better undercards in boxings future.
I can already feel the buzz for Mayweather/Pac.
Mayweather Pacman is the only fight that makes sense now. Everyone wants this fight. Hopefully Mayweather will take care of his business in July, and we can finally have a fight everyone cares about again.
Then again, I’m really looking to the next Chiek Congo / Shane Carwin fight too. . .
Boxing has actually always had multiple fights on PPV events.
HBO events that are on cable typically have either 2 bouts or one new bout and a replay of the previous week’s PPV.
But Pay Per View broadcasts are generally 4-5 hour affairs with between 4 to 6 fights. Often they’re useless jockey fights in the 112 – 120lb divisions.
But I think you’re right in that MMA has raised the bar for broadcasts. Don King has experimented with loading up PPVs w/ tons of title matches or his night of the heavyweights card from a few years back. The problem in boxing is that title fights are 12 rounds and if they’re boring that’s a real long time. Golden Boy has used guys like Victor Ortiz or tonight Humberto Soto in shorter fights against overmatched opponents to hope for a KO.
What boxing needs to do more of is putting up and comers on big PPVs and having the next contender to the winner of the Main Event fight. UFC is grea at doing that.
Pac vs Floyd/Marquez is the clear next big fight. I’d like to see Shane Mosley fight the winner of that one.
Manny could put Money to sleep
Damn, what a performance by Pacquiao. I had been saying since the match was made that I thought it was a 50/50 proposition as to who would win. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Roadblock,
Yeah, back in the 90’s there used to be 5 or 6 matches per ppv with four-rounders, but that trend stopped years ago when it was the norm for ppvs (especially from HBO) to have three fights on them, maybe four with a six rounder or something like that. But as I said before, I hope the trend with what we saw last night (well, a better permutation of it) continues with HBO ppvs.
What a great Main Event! Without a shadow of a doubt, Pacquiao proved his naysayers wrong again. He’s solidified himself as one of the greatest ever. A fighter who’s fought and BEATEN the best, especially within multiple weight classes.
He’s beaten the most dominant Latino fighters of this present and past generation (De La Hoya, Marquez, Morales, etc,), along with the UK’s Glory Boy known as Hatton.
The only big obstacle to cement his legacy is Mayweather. That fight is going to be a PPV blockbuster.
Perhaps Atlas is still bitter that Moorer replaced him with Roach when he was a heavyweight “champ”. I respect Atlas’ boxing knowledge a great deal but something must have clouded his judgment on this one.
That fight was violently spectacular.
so heres a question from someone that watches little to no boxing…one of the main arguments i hear from people when the whole boxing vs. mma (boxing is falling off as a sport, etc…) thing comes up is about fighter payouts. for a superfight it doesnt seem like these two made very much money (when compared to some of the other payouts ive seen). i dont know if they got a cut of the ppv money, so heres my question. when a superfight occurs in boxing (every year and a half or so) and the payouts arent the outrageous usual, is it a sign of the times that boxing is in trouble or just because of this shitty economy?
Didn’t they both make over $10 million?
Prediction: Floyd and Manny never fight. Floyd claims his hand is injured after the Marquez figh and he re-retires.
Dommy: According to the HBO commentary Hatton and Pacquiao will both make a minimum of $12 million each from the fight. You don’t think that’s pretty good?
First, great short fight.
Pacquiao made $12 Million. Hatton made $8 Million. Here is how I understand boxing vs. MMA purses….
In MMA, I will use the UFC as an example. They are the sole entity in charge of paying the fighters (minus sponsors). They have 100% of the risk. If the card is a financial failure, the UFC loses money. This is one of the reasons why MMA fighters get paid less. There are other factors as well.
This is not the case in boxing. The promoters and boxers are basically guaranteed their cut of the action. it kind of works like the Mafia in a weird kind of way. When Hatton signs on to make $8 Million for this fight, he will do so whether the event sold 1 Million PPV’s or 10,000 PPV’s. And the promoters will typically automatically get their cut. Where the risk comes in is HBO and the individuals or company who are guaranteeing the fight purses. I don’t exactly know that works, but I do know the promoters and fighters basically have no risk in the equation.
So to answer your question (in a long about way), fighter purses being up or down have little to do with the economy. It could have some effect, but it really has to do with how much potential people think the fight will sell.
And really what I wrote above is the central issue to the boxing problem.
1) Boxing has nobody like Zuffa investing into their sport. Each promoter takes their chunk and doesn’t really do anything to grow the sport. Zuffa grows it through expanding into new regions (like Europe), getting sanctioning in new states, and losing money on the WEC (not sure anymore) to build up the lower weight classes.
2) By taking the market out of the equation of fighters purses, it creates havoc. HBO and Showtime are primarily to blame for this. It’s like allowing the government to control a specific industry. Without the checks and balances of the free market, it is impossible to determine what the fair market value is. That seems to be happening a lot with boxers now. Maybe not so much this fight, because Hatton has selling power in the UK. And PPV is a good indicator of market value. However, Hatton got $8 Million no matter what, so really his pay has no difference on the free market.
Plus, as another example, when HBO Boxing After Dark fighters are getting over $1 Million payday when they can’t even sell out a tiny arena.
Now, some people will say that the NFL or MLB business model doesn’t allow the free market to reign as much either. This is untrue. Advertisers are a great indication of purchasing power. If an advertiser thinks their brand being shown during the Superbowl, then it really determines the worth of the NFL players. And even with those leagues, the players typically only get 50% of the profits. The rest goes to the infastructure. This is not the case in boxing.
When a fight is shown on HBO, HBO is paying the tab. There is really no way of knowing how many of those HBO subscribers are ordering HBO for boxing or for other things. And ratings will only tell them so much. I might watch HBO Boxing, but it might not be the reason I subscribe. So HBO allocating $2 Million to a fight card, and increasing fighters purses, really doesn’t allow anybody to have any idea how much a boxer is really worth. And without thise checks and balances system, payscales go unchecked, get out of line, and it only hurts the sport in the long run.
I hope this made sense.
from http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/30539612/
hatton made $8 paq made $12. now of course i would like that kind of money, but it just doesnt seem on par with a lot of other superfights in recent memory. like i said, i dont know if they get ppv cut so it could be a lot more.
12mil is good money. People are just seeing DLH fights and how those pay out and think that is how boxing is. DLH is one of the most popular boxers in history.
When all is said and done they’ll make out pretty well.
i always thought teddy was bad at predictions. for example, if the klitchkos are fighting you can almost always count on teddy to pick the opponent.
dave: yeah i guess you are right, because when i searched for something to compare all this to the first name i typed was de la hoya’s. i also thought mayweather made some decent money in his fights but from everything i have found it seems to hover around 10 mil.
Those guys made a fortune. If Pacquiao gets that same money again he’ll make as much as Arod this year.
If Mayweather and Pacquiao fight later this year, they’ll each make de la Hoya type money.
At least that’s my prediction and I predicted that Hatton vs. Pacquiao was a tossup, so you know it’s money in the bank.
45 Huddle,
You are wrong, promoters take all the financial risk on the PPV. HBO only guarantees purses for their TV dates.
What was the largest purse for an MMA event? Brock-Randy getting maybe $3 million with the PPV bonus. Both PPVs will have similar buy rates yet the boxing main event fighters make a minimum of around $12 million each + a percentage of the PPV revenue. Hatton made like $10 million more then his guaranteed for fighting Mayweather.
In boxing you don’t have to pretend that there are no other fighters outside of your “league”. They co-promote and make the biggest fights, Couture vs Fedor would have happened under a boxing system.
ZUFFA is making a ridiculous profit but they only give out 10-20 % of the profit.
I don’t want the sport of boxing or any other combat sport to be represented by only one promoter, who does his best to destroy any competition instead of working with them.
I would rather have UFC 92 or UFC 100 type of cards, then MMA Fighters making the top top tier boxing money and having garbage undercards.
The UFC doesn’t pretend other people don’t exist. Joe Rogan has talked about Fedor before and the many Lightweights in Japan. They had Cung Le on and Goldberg complimented him.
Boxing’s system is broken. The proof is all there. Despite so many TV stations, they are only with HBO & Showtime for the most part. Why? Because those two stations subsidize the sport. Without those two stations, boxing would basically be non-existent in America. They foot the bill for boxing (outside of PPV).
In America, the boxing fan base is increasing in age and going away to a certain degree. Yes, there is always the two or so big time event per year. However, on the whole, the sport is off the radar completely.
I’m not saying that Zuffa’s system is perfect. They need a union to ensure a proper checks & balances system. However, the solution is NOT giving fighters gigantic purses like boxing does. That would hurt the quality of the cards and in the long run hurt the sport.
As for only having one promoter. Last time I checked, Zuffa hasn’t really had a true competitor in the United States since TUF got popular. And if anything, the quality of the cards has increased since 2005. And the quality of fighter’s pay has also increased during this time. The biggest myth amongst MMA fans is that without competition, Zuffa would have free reign and it would hurt the sport. But really, Zuffa has had no true competition, as no organization has been able to stay in spotlight for very long. And Zuffa upped their champions pay from the high 5 figure or low 6 figure range… To the Million Dollar range. And their up & coming fighters a fair and honest wage.
People will argue with my viewpoint, however the numbers don’t lie. Look at 2007, 2008, and now into 2009. The UFC has had many Top 10 PPV Buyrates, while boxing only has their 1 or 2 big events per year. And while boxing is hurting to find the next mega star (which non of these guys are at the ODLH or Tyson level), MMA continues it’s strong and steady growth.
I’m so happy Zuffa is in charge of this sport. At least they have a good idea on how to keep things in order and not let it get like boxing.
In 2009, boxing has had a greater amount of world class fights, and the majority have been non-PPV. There is a UFC PPV every month, who is getting screwed here as a fan? UFC 96 and 97 was a bunch of over hyped garbage, and the fights themselves turned out even worse.
Margarito-Mosley, Marquez-Diaz, Berto-Collazo, Froch-Taylor and soon to be Cotto-Clotey and Klitchko-Haye all non-PPV. How does that compare to paying $45 for Jardine-Jackson and Silva-Lietes? GSP-Penn was a true super fight on paper, to bad it didn’t live up to the hype.
There has been only one major boxing PPV so far in 2009 and it was a true superfight that got more media attention then any MMA event ever.
There is more boxing on TV in North Anerica then MMA, and worldwide there is almost no MMA on TV. Ratings for HBO boxing have gone up. Don’t comment on boxing since its obvious that you don’t follow the sport.
By your reasoning, if ZUFFA ever fails as a promoter then so does the whole sport…the sad part is that this could happen under the current system. UFC equals all of MMA to the majority of fans like you, one major scandal away from killing the ONLY major promoter, much like what happened in Japan. This will never happen in boxing.
Typical ZUFFA loving tool who claims to be a fan of MMA.
Wow, I read that long post about how much better Zuffa is than boxing’s system and completely disagreed with every single one of the numbered points. And I can honestly say that it wasnt until after I read it that it was 45huddle who wrote it. I really should have known.
The only remotely accurate thing you said was that boxing doesnt promote the fighters…which is true..but this nonsense about Zuffa spreading UFC around the world!! Newsflash!! Boxing is ALREADY around the world. If you look at the boxing schedule you’ll see that there are fights all around the world every single day of the year. MMA is NOT EVEN CLOSE to boxing in terms of the amount of competition around the world. NOT EVEN CLOSE.
Now with regard to this ridiculous claim that boxing doesnt allow for a free market but Zuffa does??? Are you smoking crack? or is it just opposite day?? Boxing DOES allow fighters to earn exactly what theyre worth…whereas in UFC they earn much, much less than they are actually worth. If the fighter’s names get the PPV buys, should they be paid accordingly? Not in UFC. Only in boxing.
And this idea that HBO and Showtimes are wasting millions of dollars a year by overpaying guys who arent really filling up stadiums is even more ludicrous than your last claim. Its just absurd!!
You are really out of your mind and this obsession you have with proving that Zuffa is the greatest thing since sliced bread is really getting out of control. You are coming off has having severe difficulty coping with reality. Its quite disturbing.
RIS’s central point is right. 45’s central point is wrong. mainly cuz RIS seems to understand both sports business models and 45 has partial understanding of MMA’s business model and no clue about boxing’s business model. he’s so happy Zuffa is in charge of MMA? as RIS said- Zuffa is making a ridiculous profit but they only give out 10-20% of the profit to the fighters
I don’t want to praise UFC model over boxing, because I (and probably all of you) actually don’t know how much exactly they make in comparison to boxing promoters. However, people tend to forget that big boxing fights are broadcasted to more than hundread countries. Boxing is huge in Germany, UK, Japan, Australia, Phillipines, now even China and many many other countries and fans pay (usually indirectly – cable tv) for watching the fights. Also the live gate for big boxing cards is significantly higher.
You should also consider that not every boxer earns Pacquaio vs. Hatton type of money. Take a look at Margarito vs. Mosley (http://www.sherdog.com/news/news/affliction-fighters-out-earn-counterparts-16050). Margarito made 2.3 mln, Mosley 1 mln and other 14 fighters on the card shared 70 k (which is 5k each).
“hatton made $8 paq made $12. ”
Wow!
Thats a buttload of money!
And thats relatively low?!
One thing amazes me, this fight wasn’t for any of the major titles. I believe that at the moment Ring Magazine belt is the only legitimate title. People should not care about WBCs, WBAs, WBOs and IBFs any more.
Margarito-Mosley, Marquez-Diaz, Berto-Collazo, Froch-Taylor and soon to be Cotto-Clotey and Klitchko-Haye all non-PPV. How does that compare to paying $45 for Jardine-Jackson and Silva-Lietes?
This is basically how I feel. HBO’s decision to move down to 3 PPV cards this year means a lot more boxing that doesn’t cost me an arm and a leg. I guess 45’s argument is that I have to pay for HBO too, but then the wife and I get to watch movies and TV shows we really really like. Manswers doesn’t seem to hold the same appeal for her that Flight of The Concordes does. Go figure. And hey: Don’t forget that Arce/Darchinyan and Darchinyan/Agbeko weren’t/aren’t slated for PPV either.
I’m not so interested in the biz talk here (Arum said in USA Today he expected 500,000 buys) but moreso just discussing the end result of the fight. Pacquiao/Mayweather is a monster bout and legitimately intruiging now given how Pacquiao has performed against bigger men that Mayweather struggled with at times. Hopefully while this goes on, Tim Bradley can keep racking up wins and start putting himself in position to fight a big name at 140 (where he holds two of the belts).
Okay, a quick business 101 lesson for the Fight Opinion crowd.
Zuffa paying out a smaller portion of their revenues to their fighters has NOTHING to do with a bad business model. It has to do with where the sport of MMA is. Just like in any business, when it first starts out, pay scales are lower. As time goes by, pay will naturally increase, and fighters will have a larger percentage of the revenues.
Citing the the percentage of pay boxers get compared to MMA Fighters is not a valid argument in discussing business models. It is a bi-product of where each sport is in their history, not of the effectiveness of how they run things.
“Margarito-Mosley, Marquez-Diaz, Berto-Collazo, Froch-Taylor and soon to be Cotto-Clotey and Klitchko-Haye all non-PPV. How does that compare to paying $45 for Jardine-Jackson and Silva-Lietes? GSP-Penn was a true super fight on paper, to bad it didn’t live up to the hype.”
The free market would disagree with you. Those UFC PPV’s were each worth at least 300,000 PPV Buys. Those boxing fights were not on PPV because they could not be sold as such. If HBO could put on more boxing events, they would. They can’t because of the lack of star power.
“By your reasoning, if ZUFFA ever fails as a promoter then so does the whole sport…the sad part is that this could happen under the current system.”
If the NFL fails, so does football. If the NHL fails, so does hockey. Yes, there will always be the sport around, but this would be no different then any other major sport in America. Does that make the NFL system bad? No it does not. Another invalid argument on your part.
“but this nonsense about Zuffa spreading UFC around the world!! Newsflash!! Boxing is ALREADY around the world.”
You missed the point of me talking about Zuffa spreading the sport around. It is an example of how Zuffa is putting money back into the sport in the ways that are most valuable to help it grow. Boxing promoters are not doing that. They always think very short term, and don’t put anything back into the sport. Look at ODLH’s last fight on HBO. He was the only fight on that night. Instead, Golden Boy should have put two great prospects against each other and built another star. But nope, Oscar wanted all the glory, press, and profits for himself.
You can disagree with me, but the proof is out there right now. Boxing has a horrible and confusing championship system. Their is no central organization to have all the fighters under and have proper rankings. And the number of real selling power stars has completely dwindled in the states.
I will leave you with one last point….
Floyd Mayweather Jr. was considered the Top P4P fighter in the world when he left boxing. In his own division (Welterweight), he had only really beaten one Top 10 fighter.
Compare that to MMA. Fedor has beaten 4 or 5 other Top 10 guys. GSP has beaten something like 6 or 7. The top P4P MMA guys fight the best much more often under their system. They don’t have tons of weight classes to avoid challengers (like Mayweather did against Cotto, Margarito, & Williams)…. Nor do they get to the top of their divisions without beating MANY of the best.
In boxing, a boxer beats 1 or 2 guys, and he is the top of their division. Too much fragmentation. Too much corruption. The system is broken.
45 Huddle isn’t a “tool” when he expresses a dissenting opinion. I don’t know why it has to get so personal in discussion forums.
45 Huddle is great at what he does. He’s a troll that loves to take the contrarian position and defend it.
BTW, interesting point to make now that I’ve been gone a week and only now seeing what exactly HBO televised: It should be bizarre that people really seemed to like the undercard on MMA forums. It was a bunch of prospects in bouts against overmatched foes, while legit contenders like Abner Mares, Bernabe Concepcion, and Mike Alvarado were in untelevised fights. I still think no one would have complained about the De La Hoya/Pacquiao undercard that was so awful if they had just thrown in some more blowouts. Better to have a parade of carnage than merely decent, competitive fights between well matched opposition.
Even though the UFC doesn’t cross promote, it seems that promoters in boxing still prevent matchups from happening.
I’m a huge Pacquiao fan, and from what I’ve been reading, Bob Arum (pac’s promoter) has legitimate beef with Floyd Mayweather. I read on boxingscene.com that Arum wants to have Pacquiao fight Cotto (another boxher he promotes) as opposed to Mayweather.
http://www.boxingscene.com/?m=show&id=19735
Mayweather might also be taking Marquez for granted, this isn’t an easy comeback fight for him. Mayweather-Pacquiao might not happen…if Arum can’t negotiate with Mayweather’s camp, and if Mayweather loses to Marquez (a real possibility). Mayweather vs. Pacquiao is far from a sure thing.
Also…Gary Shaw promotes Vic Darchinyan, an Armenian boxer who lost to Nonito Donaire, a Filipino. Donaire beat Vic, yet Gary Shaw refuses to allow a rematch to happen, and Darchinyan continues to get more press than Donaire.
Even though Boxing has more cross promotions than MMA, boxing promoters still wreck potential matchups.
Even though I’d love to see a Pacquiao/Mayweather fight…I can easily see it not happening.
(note: I’m at work and I’m sure I misspelled some names, didn’t have time to look them up)
Why are you saying it’s bad that boxing is “only” on HBO and Showtime? That’s the way it was even in the 80s boxing boom and once in a while ABC would show a unimportant fight or highlights from a big one on Wide World Of Sports some Saturday afternoons. And even if it’s “only” HBO and Showtime that’s still one more station than UFC is on. And I think they still run weekly on ESPN2 as well, so that’s 3 stations, plus Univision showing Mexican fights. Actually, if the number of TV stations dictate how big you are, then since Strikeforce is on Showtime, CBS (is the late night NBC show still on) that’s 2 (or 3) stations compared to UFC’s Spike.
I know the party line for MMA fans is to repeat the UFC mantra of “boxing is dead”, but it’s only down in America. Internationally boxing kicks MMA’s ass all over the place, so you’re comparing success in one country (North America) against success in all over Europe, South America, Asia, Africa, and Australia. Americans just tuned out to everything but super fights because no Americans are big stars beyond Mayweather and De La Hoya. Internationally they don’t have as narrow of a worldview and like fighters no matter if they can chant “USA! USA!” or not.
And yeah, you’re right UFC doesn’t pretend non-UFC fighters don’t exist. They just have their executives immaturely bash them in the media.
“Better to have a parade of carnage than merely decent, competitive fights between well matched opposition.”
So many people on the forums seem to like any form of slugfest and subsequent knockout over a well-matched and contested fight. It was something that really surprised me when I started reading online forums a long time ago.
I remember certain boxing matches that I really enjoyed and then read online about how badly the fight sucked.
If any of you guys saw Jason Ireland vs. Jorge Gurgel, tons of UGers at the time stated that it was the best fight they’d ever seen. That really sums it up better than anything else I can think of.
Not sure why you’d be surprised that people like slugfests that end in knockouts.
Where have you been for the past 100 years?
Hatton has nowhere to go in the sport – he might as well retire.
Samscaff, I may have done a poor job of explaining myself. I used the words, “any form of slugfests,” which, to me, includes those wild-ass toughman-type bouts.
In other news:
“USA Today reported Monday that early indications from cable companies were that the scheduled 12-round light-welterweight bout could get as many as two million buys.
Co-promoter Bob Arum was delighted with the figures especially as initial estimates were suggesting about one million boxing fans would shell out their cash.
“We know based on those early numbers and based on experience the event will perform extremely well. If I had to guess, anywhere between 1.6 million and two million homes, which is a home run,” he said.”
Even a “disappointing” 1.2 million would be 700,000 more than he guessed on Thursday and bigger than every MMA event ever. Boxing! Dead!
What I’m talking about aren’t slugfests. I’m talking onesided beatings. I don’t need to see Korobov/random guy to know how that would go or went. I certainly don’t think it makes for a great undercard fight that I’d be paying for. Putting three of those fights on doesn’t help matters either. I have always preferred that someone like HBO use extra time to televise fights that were initally off TV, but I understand why they aren’t (they’re usually sold for international rights but HBO/Showtime/etc don’t pick them up).
Those PPV numbers are outstanding!
Very surprised that Manny has crossed into the mainstream like this, even with his thrilling style, historical accomplishments and humble attitude I never thought that the average American could embrace a foreigner who struggles with english and is a “little guy”
Pacquiao is the first boxer ever to win the lineal championship (he is the “man” to to beat the “man”) in four different weight classes (112,126,130,140) and he also won titles in the 122 and 135 division and competed once at 147. He has competed in 10 weight classes and now he looks to face Mayweather, Cotto and Shane Mosley. If he beats Floyd he becomes the lineal champion at yet another weight class (147) and the other two are #1 and #2 in the welterweight division (before Floyd announced his comeback).
We are watching historical greatness, and in my opinion if Pacquiao faces those fighters he has nothing to lose in terms of legacy. He has already overachieved tremendously.
My apologies to 45 Huddle, I didn’t mean to be a dick, it was a bad night.
Dont apologize to him.
Some people need to be scolded.
The undercards for the mega fights in the last few years have been horrible.
DLH-PBF only had two fights and one was a dull Rocky Juarez bout. PBF-Hatton was slightly better on paper but they turned out to be boring. Calzaghe-Jones was probably the worst since they seemed to take an eternity to get to the main event and the Pacman-DLH undercard finished in a minute or two of action, for three mismatches.
This undercard was marginally better because they at least showed 4 fights which went rounds. In hindsight Gaudet was an ok opponent for Soto and the planned Concepcion-Luevano was a solid fight which got canceled due to injury. They should have used Concepcion and Alvarado in competitive matches and shown those on TV instead of development fights for Lara,Korobov and Jacobs. Mares was coming off a serious injury so I can understand the soft touch.
Bottom line is that the promoters do a horrible job to impress the casual fans with these undercards. The independent PPVs are much better top to bottom. The Lightweight Golden Boy card and the Top Rank card from the Philippines were very entertaining. Its good that the HBO/Showtime and even ESPN cards have improved in the last few months. Though I wish that there was a third major network to invest in boxing and pick up fights like Johnson-Adamek. VS has been a big disappointment, they need to get away from the Contender.
1.6 million buys???
Oscar who?
Here is the link that mentioned the possibility that the fight had as many as 2 million PPV buys:
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/SPORT/05/04/manny.money/index.html
Here’s what I dont get:
People (like 45Huddle) are constantly defending fan-unfriendly decisions by the UFC/Zuffa because “its just good business,” while people also criticize boxing for weak PPV undercards.
If its okay for UFC to make decisions that hurt and rip-off fans because “they are running a business” why is it not okay for boxing promoters to do the same thing??
If you can get 1.5million buys for a single quality match on a PPV card, why would you put another drawing fight on the undercard?? By 45Huddle logic, its just good business, and you cant criticize someone for that.
I guess this is beside point, since I dont really have an answer, I’m just pointing out the hypocrisy.
Furthermore…the fact of the matter is, people are generally satisfied with the boxing PPV cards if the main events deliver, and they dont really care about the undercards.
I really dont have a problem with boxing PPV cards because I only order them if the main event is truly deserving, and has a very good chance of living up to hype. When a great boxing main event match does live up to the hype, nobody remembers the undercard anyway (even if it was good).
Here’s some figures to look at:
ALL TIME PPV TOP 15:
1) De La Hoya vs Mayweather (2,150,000 buys)
2) Tyson vs Holyfield II (1,990,000 buys)
3) Tyson vs Lewis (1,950,000 buys)
4) Tyson vs Holyfield I (1,590,000 buys)
5) Tyson vs McNeely (1,550,000 buys)
6) Tyson vs Bruno II (1,370,000 buys)
7) De La Hoya vs Pacquiao (1,260,000 buys)
8) Tyson vs Ruddock II (1,250,000 buys)
9) Mayweather vs Hatton (1,200,000 buys)
10) De La Hoya vs Trinidad (1,200,000 buys)
11) Holyfield vs Foreman (1,150,000 buys)
12) Wrestlemania 23 (1,100,000 buys)
13) De La Hoya vs Hopkins (1,070,000 buys)
14) Holyfield vs Douglas (1,060,000 buys)
15) UFC 66 (1,050,000 buys)
2008 TOP 10
1) De La Hoya vs Pacquiao (1,260,000 buys)
2) UFC 92 (1,020,000 buys)
3) UFC 91 (1,010,000 buys)
4) Wrestlemania 24 (670,000 buys)
5) UFC 87 (625,000 buys)
6) UFC 81 (600,000 buys)
7) UFC 86 (540,000 buys)
8) UFC 83 (530,000 buys)
9) Trinidad vs Jones Jr. (500,000 buys)
10 UFC 88 (480,000 buys)
2007 TOP 10
1) Mayweather vs De La Hoya (2,150,000 buys)
2) Mayweather vs Hatton (1,200,000 buys)
3) Wrestlemania 23 (1,100,000 buys)
4) UFC 71 (1,000,000 buys)
5) UFC 68 (605,000 buys)
6) UFC 74 (600,000 buys)
7) UFC 79 (590,000 buys)
8) UFC 73 (420,000 buys)
9) UFC 67 (400,000 buys)
10) UFC 69 (375,000 buys)
2006 TOP 10
1) UFC 66 (1,050,000 buys)
2) De La Hoya vs Mayorga (925,000 buys)
3) UFC 61 (775,000 buys)
4) UFC 63 (700,000 buys)
5) Wrestlemania 22 (636,000 buys)
6) UFC 60 (620,000 buys)
7) UFC 62 (500,000 buys)
8) UFC 59 (425,000 buys)
9) Mosley vs Vargas (420,000 buys)
10) UFC 57 (400,000 buys)
Those numbers are interesting, thanks for posting that. What you can gather from the UFC numbers is that UFC has about 650,000 rabid fans, anything more is due to some true cross-over appeal of some of the fighters, anything less is for a shitty card.
I think the reports of boxing’s demise are short-sighted at best. UFC is doing well, but may have peaked with its current audience. Their biggest draw just retired after being knocked retarded again. They have done nothing to attract fans outside of the white male 18 – 32 demographic. Yes, that is an important demographic, but as we’ve seen in the past with wrestling and so on, it is a fickle demographic.
Boxing has a much larger audience.
I had a long rebuttal to some of the above posts. It got the “waiting for moderator” thing… So I’ll just leave it alone.
As for the UFC vs. Boxing audience…. Boxing has a larger potential audience for the really big fights. However, the UFC is doing very solid business with really only the 18 to 32 demographic that you speak of. As that demographic gets older, many will likely continue to watch the sport. And when they have kids, they will expose them to MMA not boxing.
Boxing losing almost entire generation is why people talk about the demise of the sport in America. Once a generation is lost, it is very hard to get back on track. I don’t think anybody will deny that boxing has a large fanbase. But go to a boxing event, and it is a lot of very old people. That crowd won’t be around in 15 to 20 years. The crowd is currently watching MMA will be.