The Rios fight did 450k PPV buys and the Bradley fight did between 750-800k PPV buys. Those are disappointing numbers for Pacquiao and Bob Arum acknowledges that.
He blamed the low Rios number on it being in China and therefore it not getting a lot of American press, but he had a different reason for the low Pacquaio vs. Bradley II numbers.
That is a significant decline from what Pacquiao-Bradley I generated when Bradley received a heavily disputed split decision that led to worldwide outrage in June 2012. That fight generated 890,000 pay-per-view buys and many expected the rematch to at least equal the first fight.
“We’re between 750,000 and 800,000. Sure, it’s a disappointment,” Arum said.
Arum said he believed the reason that Pacquiao-Bradley II did not do as well as he had hoped was because of the lack of a Hispanic opponent.
“The absence of Mexican or Hispanic opponent hurt,” Arum said. “If you had a challenger like, for example, Marquez, the fight would do over a million buys. Tim is a great fighter but he’s not Hispanic and he we tried everything to energize the black community without that much success.”
To me it is unfair to blame Bradley for this. If the first fight did 890k PPV buys and Bradley is more well known now than he was back then, how is it his fault the numbers dropped?
At minimum if Pacquiao was the same star as he was when they first fought the PPV numbers should have been a little bit better, but the facts are Pacquiao’s star is fading even if he is still a good fighter. Don’t blame the black community, because Pacquiao was doing over a million buys fighting people like Joshua Clottey.
So, the problem is Pacquiao not Tim Bradley.
