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On November 23rd in
Macao, Manny Pacquiao faces Brandon Rios in a fight distributed by HBO
Pay-Per-View. The press tour for this fight that began in Asia concluded on
Thursday afternoon at the Beverly Hills Hotel. The fight is historic in one respect:
its locale.
“We haven't had a
pay-per-view mega-fight overseas in our history. This is the first time,” said
Mark Taffet, Senior VP of Sports Operations and Pay-Per-View at HBO. The fight
is taking place in the early morning hours locally to accommodate the Stateside
audience, which will be able to view this card in prime time.
But what is more worrisome
to those involved in the event is that the usual media swarm that would
converge in Las Vegas and pound out stories all week long in the media center
may not make the trek to Macao. There was a time when big fights took place all
over the world (think about the “Thrilla in Manila” between Muhammad Ali and Joe
Frazier in the Philippines) but that was in an era when the biggest papers had
no problems sending their fight scribes for weeks at a time to cover these events.
Bob Arum has announced a
special media rate of $1,500 that will include round-trip airfare and a hotel
room during fight week. The veteran promoter said the feedback to this offer
was “overwhelming. We're going to have to weed out because we can't take
everybody. We're not going to have enough seats, so I would think when we get
to around 80, we're going to cut it off.”
This event is still taking
place halfway across the world and there are still some logistical hurdles that
have to be cleared.
“Well, we'll be on at the
same time that our fans in the U.S. are used to watching the big pay-per-view
fights and what we will be doing is bringing China into the living rooms across
America through a lot of publicity, video promotion and satellite interviews,” explained
Taffet. “So our goal is to have the fans at home in the United States feel the
fight with the same electricity they normally would and we believe that with today's
media and the immediacy of things that we can accomplish that and make it a
great experience.”
Arum says, judging by the reaction
of this press tour, his concerns have been assuaged.
“This is what I hoped would
happen and in dealing with the Venetian [Resort]. I have a really good partner,
guys who understand. The difficulty would be some people who are ignorant of
the sport, how it works,” said the chairman of Top Rank, who has staged two
prior events in Macao featuring Zou Shiming, who will be on this undercard in
November. “But the people who run things at the Venetian are all Americans and
they know how important it is to do these things.”
When asked if he felt this
fight could go north of 750,000 pay-per-view purchases, Arum replied, “Yeah, I
think with the curiosity and everything that it could end up doing more than if
the fight was in the United States.”
HBO
Top Rank is still having
discussions with HBO about a few dates but this much is clear: on November 9th,
a doubleheader with Mikey Garcia (who could be challenging WBO 130-pound beltholder
Rocky Martinez) and Nonito Donaire (in what could be a rematch versus Vic
Darchinyan) is on the calendar.
As for where it will take
place, Arum says, “We're waiting for the hockey schedule to be posted. We have
the basketball. So we have a couple of buildings in Texas on hold but we have
to see where the hockey is going to be.”
As for Guillermo Rigondeaux,
who may or may not be exiled by the network, Arum states, “We're getting a lot
of feedback on them. We're working hard; we're going to get another date and
hopefully, we'll be able to put ‘Rigo’ on one of those cards.”
SPORTS ON EARTH
Here's my latest for
SportsOnEarth.com on how the Time Warner Cable-Showtime dispute could affect pay-per-view
buys for Saul Alvarez-Floyd Mayweather:
WEEKEND FLURRIES
Felix Verdejo is on this
week’s edition of “Solo Boxeo” from Puerto Rico...Do people still pay money to
watch Hector Camacho Jr. fight?...They served Chinese food at the Pacquiao-Rios
press conference. It was good but where was the orange chicken?...“Football on
your Phone” by the Manning brothers is better than most of the stuff I hear on
the radio...
I can be reached
at k9kim@yahoo.com and I tweet at www.twitter.com/stevemaxboxing.
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