It looks like Manny Pacquiao’s farewell fight fared no better at the box office than Floyd Mayweather’s.
Floyd Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao may have been the richest and biggest financial success in boxing history, but both men have seen their respective retirement bouts flop on pay-per-view. Mayweather’s win over Andre Berto drew in just 550,000 buys, his worst-selling PPV since 2006, and now it looks as if Pacquiao’s is even lower than that.
According to Pacquiao’s promoter, Bob Arum, he expects the final total to be no higher than 500,000 buys.
Nothing official yet but Arum told me today he expects #PacBradley PPV to be between 400k and 500k. He termed that “not good.” #boxing
— Dan Rafael (@danrafaelespn) April 12, 2016
It’s no real surprise that Pacquiao vs. Bradley 3 appears to have been a (relative) dud. Demand for a trilogy bout wasn’t exactly in demand, and Pacquiao’s post-Marquez loss fights in Macau vs. Chris Algieri and Brandon Rios also topped out at 400-470k. These comments on gay marriage, which cost him his Nike sponsorship, probably didn’t help matters.
Pacquiao scored two knockdowns en route to a clear unanimous decision win over Bradley, giving him 2 wins out of 3 in their trilogy, with the one loss widely regarded as a robbery. Their first fight in 2012 did 890,000 buys, with the 2014 rematch estimated at 750,000-800,000 units.
With Pacquiao and Mayweather ending on high notes as far as victories, but low notes as far as PPV buys, one can only conclude that Canelo Alvarez is boxing’s current #1 draw, and at just 25 years old, he could hold that position for awhile. Canelo fights Amir Khan on May 7th at the new T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
For more boxing coverage, check out Bad Left Hook.