source: Kevin Mitchell | guardian.co.uk
The Pacman's power – in the box office and the ring – has given his sport some momentum again, but at a price. When the numbers came in from Las Vegas this week, showing boxing has finally landed a left hook on Ultimate Fighting Championship, they disguised a more complicated, and more interesting, story.
Clearly, what the 1.25m pay-per-view hits for Manny Pacquiao v Miguel Cotto underlined was that Manny is in a strong place to ask for the bigger cut when he meets Floyd Mayweather Jr in what will be the fight of the decade some time next year.
The Pacman has good ammunition: he out-rated Money's September comeback fight with Juan Manuel Márquez by a cool quarter of a million; also, the $8.84m (£5.35m) gate was, according to USA Today, effectively $8m bigger than what the comp-bloated UFC show returned the previous weekend.
Is this good for boxing? Yes and no. The Pacquiao-Mayweather deal just got messier. For all his great back story, for all his charisma and charm, Pacquiao is every bit as greedy as Mayweather. Ask Ricky Hatton (and actually he's no pushover, either).
There are weeks, probably months, of public squabbling to come. The stories will not be about the boxing merits of the fighters but the size of their bank accounts and egos. I think Pacquiao deserves a slightly bigger dividend, as he is creating the bigger buzz.
Boxing needs more than just Pacquiao and Mayweather Jr propping it up, though. David Haye has a platform now (as long as Don King stays out of his hair), and Showtime's Super Six has got off to a great start. In the UK, Prizefighter continues to be consistently entertaining, and there are some good young boxers coming through, in the amateurs leading up to the Olympics, as well as the pros.
Happy days? Let's hope so.
But I wouldn't be dancing on Dana White's grave just yet. He's still got a product with a significant and cash-rich fan base. Professional fighting of any variety is all about the money – for most people, anyway …
****
No contest: Boxing batters mixed martial arts at the gate
by: J. Michael Falgoust | usatoday.com
In a November showdown with the UFC in Las Vegas, boxing scored a knockout at the gate after the latest numbers from the Nevada State Athletic Commission.
UFC 106 last weekend featured Tito Ortiz vs. Forrest Griffin before an audience of 10,529 at Mandalay Bay for a $3 million gate. Of that total, however, 3,898 of those tickets were comps, or giveaways (valued at $2.3 million).
By comparison, Manny Pacquiao's 12th-round knockout of Miguel Cotto on Nov. 14 generated an $8.84 million gate with 15,470 tickets sold. No tickets were sold below face value for the bout and just 46 were comps.
Floyd Mayweather's Sept. 18 decision win against Juan Manuel Marquez wasn't quite the same caliber of fight as Pacquiao-Cotto, but it sold almost twice as many tickets at face value than UFC 106 and pulled in a $6.89 million gate.
Both boxing matches were at MGM Grand Garden Arena. Pacquiao's bout scored 1.25 million pay-per-view buys and Mayweather's 1 million, the Nos. 1 and 2 boxing PPV events of the 2009, according to official numbers released by HBO PPV in conjunction with promotional powers Top Rank and Golden Boy.
In a comparison of both sports' biggest shows of the year at the gate, Pacquiao-Cotto still easily outdistances UFC 100 held in July at Mandalay Bay. There were 9,793 paid attendees for a $5.1 million gate (second all-time for the organization), with the Brock Lesnar-Frank Mir heavyweight championship rematch headlining a stellar card.
UFC president Dana White has said that event sold 1.5 million on PPV, though the organization is a private company and doesn't release official numbers. There doesn't appear to be any unofficial figures from UFC 106 yet.
UFC 100 drew $312,800 in additional revenue from 6,256 fans who bought closed circuit tickets for the event in Las Vegas and New York.
By comparison, the closed circuit viewing parties for Pacquiao-Cotto in Las Vegas alone brought in $899,100 with more than 24,000 tickets sold.
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I personally don't think Manny is asking too much money for the (hopefully) upcoming Pac-PBF fight since he agreed to split the money completely in half (50/50). But asking for 60/40 when you just got out of retirement, won against a slow opponent because of the weight advantage (which is extremely disappointing even for a guy like PBF), and currently not able to draw as much money in as Manny ... is ... definitely being greedy.