Often Pretty Boy Floyd Mayweather is somewhat downplayed as a draw. Perhaps he doesn't draw viewers that are proportional to his skill, but take a look at his ppv numbers:
Hatton - 850k
De La Hoya - 2.15million
Baldomir- 325k
Judah - 374k
Gatti - 365k
Now take a look at Manny Pacquiao's numbers. Manny is often portrayed as a huge draw, probably because he is so famous in his home country, in relation to Floyd's relative fame here in the States:
JMM - 400k
MAB - 350 k
Morales I - all three reported between 345-360
II - 345-360
III - 345-360
Diaz - 250
Now, this isn't exactly an apples to apples comparison. There are differences in the date of the fights, sometimes the price of the fights, their weight classes and the most obvious, the opponents in the fights. Still, this is just something to think about. Just a thought that maybe Floyd doesn't get as much credit as he should for being the star that he is. On an absolute basis, Floyd has been the bigger draw. Also, Manny may be a slight bit overrated as a star here in the States.
17.11.08
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Thats really not fair. Before fighting Oscar, Floyd barely sold a little more than 1 million PPVs in his whole career. Oscar is the guy that made him a household name, hence the popularity of the Hatton fight. Wait til we see the De la Hoya-Pacquiao numbers, then can we call Pacquiao a big PPV draw? In that case, Mayorga is a box office smash, isn't he? Basically, if you fight Oscar, you're a hit... Doesn't that make Oscar the "hit"???
There's no doubt that this was an unfair comparison. And there's no doubt that De La Hoya is the big draw. But not every one of Oscar's fights were huge hits. He's had a ton of ppv fights and some of them have done under 400k. So it could be argued that Mayorga actually was a proven draw in his heyday.
Unfortunately, due to the fact that Oscar is a bit past his prime, and the economic times, the Manny fight might not be a big hit. It certainly isn't going to do 2million, it might be lucky to do 1million. But we will see. Timing is everything.
Theory: Oscar was the big draw, and is an outlier. Beating Oscar does not and never did make a fighter as big a star as him. See Shane Mosley after their first fight. Maybe if Manny knocks Oscar, he could become this gigantic ppv draw. It would probably take more than that though, because Oscar is past his prime.
Also, it's the match ups that make for the big numbers. There has to be a compelling person on both sides of the match to lead to a high buy number.
But Floyd was a compelling fighter. He was able to draw up the numbers against Oscar higher than anyone else was capable of doing, including Vargas, Mosely, Mayorga, Hopkins or Trinidad. And unless Hatton fights Oscar or Floyd again, he isn't going to see buys above probably 600k and that includes against Manny, and he did 850 with Floyd.
So Floyd was a proven draw in the right situation, far surpassing nearly every other fighter. Mosley beat Oscar in his prime, and has never seen Floyd numbers.
The thing that help generate the 2million plus ppv sales for De la hoya-Mayweather was due to the 24/7 episodes on HBO. That show/documentary was the first of its kind. Sure Mayweather acting like a pompous ass in the show helped, but I don't think that fight would have done over 1 million without 24/7. Thats just my opinion though. I think Pacquiao is as big as draw as Mayweather(before de la hoya). If it wasn't for Oscar, Mayweather would have never been where he's at right now.
Yes, Manny is probably as big of a draw as Floyd. Floyd just doesn't get a lot of credit for being a draw. And they both pale in comparison to Oscar. 24/7 helped The World Awaits, and it will help the Dream Match too. Presumably Oscar and Manny will hit the media circuit like Floyd and Oscar did.
And there's no doubt that Oscar helped Floyd way more than Floyd helped Oscar.
24/7 isn't a magic bullet to draw buys by itself either. Roy Jones and Joe Calzaghe got a 24/7 and they didn't even sell 300k.
The World Awaits was promoted like no other boxing event. Their 24/7 had 4 episodes, not just 1... Just out of curiousity, I stumbled on this site by google search, I am a HUGE boxing fan, how long have you guys been up? I like it... Doesn't seem like theres much comments in here though.
Jones and Calzaghe had three 24/7's.
We started a little over one year ago.
One of our contributors (not Uatu) is actually a professional freelance writer who contributes some sports related content among other writings, but not in boxing.
As per our manifesto, since other sites actually are, or claim to be, providing traditional reporting on boxing, we figured we wouldn't even bother to try to fake our way through that avenue. We decided to just be completely opinion and round by rounds, at least to start.
Our only true qualifications have been watching a lot of boxing on TV and in person when possible.
Between the three of us I think we have seen every HBO, Showtime, PPV and a large majority of the cable cards since 2000. We certainly aren't historians at all.
I haven't seen all of the cable and ppv cards, but I am certain that I have seen every HBO and Showtime fight since 2001. Doesn't make me an expert at all, but it at least shows that we are big fans too. We don't take ourselves as being too serious. We just report on what we see and comment on it.
More Comments would be great. But there are so many sites, boards, and blogs these days (us included).
We were casual watchers before 2001, so we would have seen some of the Toney, Jones, Holyfield, Lewis, Bowe, and Foreman fights in the 90's, and of course a lot of Tyson. The Leonard, Hearns, Duran, Hagler fights are a little bit before out time.
Well I'll be commenting from now on. I'm just happy to meet real boxing fans like myself!! I too can say have seen pretty much all HBO and Showtime fights in the last maybe 6 plus years. I have so many opinions on certain fights and fighters and feel like I can't conversate with anyone I know, it sucks.
Oh yeah.... Jones Calzaghe had 3 episodes of 24/7??? Wow, I totally missed that one. I must have watched either the 1st or the last episode only. Didn't seem interesting at all.
Just so you can know, the best fight I have EVER seen.................. Vazquez-Marquez III. I was just in shock throughout the whole fight.
Any boxing show is better than having no show, so I watched all of the 24/7's for Roy and Joe. Some fighters and their camps are just more interesting than others. For the most of the fights, just doing one Countdown show is probably enough, but I'd rather have three just for something to watch.
Finding other fans is not easy, which is one of the reasons we started this site. The three of us all live in different towns, and we always ended up talking through all the fights through text messages and whatnot, so we figured why not just post all of our thoughts.
The most common line you hear from non-fans is "Boxing is dead" or "MMA and the UFC has replaced boxing." It's such an easy thing to say and get away with without doing any research. The World Awaits proved that boxing isn't dead, provided you have the right stars and match ups. It has gone more international, with huge crowds in Canada, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Wales, England, and Germany among others.
MMA has really grown on me, and it may or may not be bigger than boxing, but there's surely room for both.
And don't get me started on this business about how boxing needs a unified heavyweight champ to "save" it. The Klitschko's are practically the undisputed champs. The lower weight class fights are usually better anyway.
Vazquez-Marquez III was incredible. I might have to agree with you. I liked it more than Corrales-Castillo I even, and that is saying a lot!
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