National Football League

Mayweather vs. Pacquiao: Greatness in both corners

Published Apr. 2, 2015 9:57 p.m. ET

share

facebookxredditlink

foxsports

By Marc Weeks

Manny Pacquiao vs. Floyd Mayweather Jr, on May 2 will break the Internet, pay-per-view buys and will be the most watched combat sport event in the history of the world. It's going to have grandmothers talking trash to one another, be bigger than many Super Bowls and have the women on “The View” giving predictions.

The reasons for this are because in one corner stands the undefeated Floyd Mayweather Jr., the best fighter in the last two generations and the most dominate counter-puncher ever to exist. And in the other corner stands Manny Pacquiao, who is the prototype of an aggressive fighter, has the most punching power (pound-for-pound) and has had ten world titles to his name.

Stylistically, this fight would be magnificent because of how opposite they are to each other. Floyd is Orthodox and Manny is South-Paw, Floyd is passive and Manny is aggressive, Floyd relies on technical proficiency and Manny relies on brute force. Heck, even their network homes are opposite as Floyd is promoted by Showtime and Manny is promoted by HBO. This fight would be epic just on that, but add in the large rabid fan bases of both and this is going to be a LEGENDARY FIGHT.

Floyd Mayweather Jr. is the only fighter in the world that lives up to his nickname. A lot of fighters have dumb nicknames like “Pitbull”, “Killer” or my favorite, “Soul Assassin.” But Floyd’s nickname is “Money”. The reason for this is he is going to get paid $80 million for this fight.  He usually averages at least $50 million per fight.

Here is an example of how well “Money” sells fights: Most PPV’s that make good money are in the 500-750K viewer range. Over 1 million viewers and that PPV is in the top 25 of all time. “Money” Mayweather sold 2.2 million and 2.4 million PPV’s against Saul Alvarez and Oscar De La Hoya respectively. This fight promises to have many more buyers plus a steeper selling price of $89.99. “Money” Mayweather is going to be swimming in money Scrooge McDuck style.

I am not a Manny “hater” but thank goodness he lost to Juan Manuel Marquez and Timothy Bradley, otherwise this fight would not be happening. There is more to fighting than just what happens in the ring and a lot of ego is on the line. The reason this mega-fight didn’t happen before is because each fighter wanted to get paid the most. Not for money, as they both have obscene amounts already, but rather it was about being the man who gets paid.

With the losses Pacquiao suffered, he had less bargaining power and had to settle for a 60/40 split of the PPV buys. But don’t worry Pacquiao fans, just because he lost doesn’t mean he isn’t any good. The fight with Timothy Bradley was a garbage decision by the judges. The loss by knockout to Marquez isn’t that bad when one realizes that boxing is about timing and what was essentially round 42 (Marquez and Pacquiao fought 3 other times at 36 rounds + 6 rounds in the fourth fight), any fighter is going to get another fighter’s timing down and land a KO punch at that point. It happens.

On May 2, 2015, you had better get to wherever you’re going to early because I guarantee that no seat, in any house, will be available late.

Manny vs. “Money” is going to be the last great PPV and we may never see a boxing event like this ever again.

More from isportsweb.com:

share

Get more from National Football League Follow your favorites to get information about games, news and more

in this topic

National Football League