A week before the Nov. 5 bout between Manny Pacquiao and Jessie Vargas, Top Rank head Bob Arum told reporters at a Q&A session, “We think we are going to do very, very big pay per view numbers. Do I know that for a fact? No. Am I optimistic? Off the charts. Off the charts optimistic.” According to recent reports, on Tuesday, Arum told USA TODAY Sports that the Filipino senator’s recent fight sold “a little over 300,000” PPVs, which according to Arum, was around the same number Pacquiao’s third fight with Timothy Bradley made last April.
As noted by Bloody Elbow, should Arum’s estimate be correct, it would make Pacquiao-Vargas the least watched Pacman fight since his 2008 tiff with David Diaz. The report adds that every Pacquiao fight since then sold at least 400,000 PPVs, with seven fights selling over one million PPVs.
“We presented a great show. We made money. Everybody made money. You don’t hit a homerun every time. We hit a single or a double. I’m very pleased,” Arum said.
Absent of a partnership with HBO, Top Rank was left as the sole promoter of the fight, a development that some say led to a lack of promotion for the fight. Bloody Elbow pointed out that a planned preview series did not materialize.
“Why would we need HBO pay-per-view going forward,” Arum defiantly asked. “What do they add that we weren’t able to do ourselves? I think the fact there was no delay helped the numbers.
HBO traditionally runs a replay of their promoted fights a week later. Arum suggested that without the option of catching the replay, fans were left with just one chance at watching the fight.
Pacquiao won via unanimous decision, which included a second round knockdown of the younger foe. The judges scored the fight 118-109, 118-109 and 114-113 in favor of the 37-year-old.
