Manny Pacquiao news made the headlines as the famous boxer's pay-per-view numbers in his rematch against Timothy Bradley last April 12 was on a decline while promoter Bob Arum has expressed his desire to bring the Filipino champion back to Macau.
Top Rank chief Bob Arum spoke to ESPN.com to express his dissatisfaction towards the numbers. In the first fight between Manny Pacquiao and Tim Bradley in June 2012 wherein it was marred by controversy, it generated 890,000 pay-per-view buys.
The numbers were expected to go higher in the rematch, but the exact opposite happened. Manny Pacquiao news has it that the Pacquiao-Bradley 2 only generated between 750,000 and 800,000 buys. These recent turn of events have made Arum ponder on having all of "Pacman's" future fights back in Macau.
Manny Pacquiao faced up-and-comer Brandon Rios in Macau, China in November 2013, after a year of absence from fighting since his brutal knockout against Juan Manuel Marquez.
The said fight only generated 475,000 pay-per-view buys, but having it held overseas from the US and the fact that Brandon Rios was not an elite opponent were major contributions for the relatively miniscule turnout of numbers.
"Having (future Pacquiao) fights in Macau makes so much sense because we can do huge site fees and we want to launch pay-per-view in China," Arum told ESPN. "We couldn't get it up and running for the Rios fight but we will, and then, between that and the site fee, we won't be so reliant on the pay-per-view in the United States."
Manny Pacquiao's career and success was mainly built on fights against Hispanic fighters. His battles against the likes of Marco Antonio Barrera, Erik Morales, and Juan Manuel Marquez have been the staple fights that boosted him into mainstream success.
Not only was Timothy Bradley not Hispanic, but his controversial stint as champion also made him the most-hated fighter at one point, making him unable to build a solid fan base, even amongst the black community. This was also one of the factors that Arum looked at.
"If you had a challenger like, for example, Marquez, the fight would do over a million buys," Arum added.
"Tim is a great fighter but he's not Hispanic and we tried everything to energize the black community without that much success. But we all made money on the fight. We did OK," Boob Arum said adding more Manny Pacquiao news.
