AP PHOTO
HOUSTON, Texas—People don’t get tired watching a good fight—even if it’s on its fourth run like last Saturday’s Manny Pacquiao-Juan Manuel Marquez clash in Las Vegas.
Initially dismissed as another boring exercise, the bout turned out to be a sizzler with Marquez sneaking in a right that knocked out Pacquiao cold one second before the end of the sixth round.
After a slow start in pay-per-view (PPV) sales, Pacquiao-Marquez 4, held at MGM Grand, finished strong and Top Rank again had a blockbuster with about 1.15 million PPV buys on HBO.
Top Rank chief Bob Arum bared the early results to Filipino sportswriters covering Nonito Donaire Jr.’s defense of his WBO super bantamweight title against Jorge Arce of Mexico Saturday night at Toyota Center here.
“We’re not done yet (with final sales report,” said Arum. “That’s ($1.15 million) a good figure.”
At $59.95 per buy, Pacquiao-Marquez 4 generated at least $70 million in revenues, matching the PPV sales of the third edition, which chalked up sales of $1.3 million but cost $5 less.
In easily topping the sales of his controversial losing fight against Timothy Bradley in June, Pacquiao thus became the only fighter in history to break one million PPV hits for five straight years.
Mike Tyson achieved the feat four years in a row.
Pacquiao-Bradley posted between 800,000 and 900,000 buys, reason why Pacquiao’s camp did not pursue a rematch.
Proving his drawing power, Pacquiao also hit home runs against Oscar De La Hoya (1.25 million) in 2008, Miguel Cotto (1.25 million) in 2009, Antonio Margarito (1.15 million) in 2010, and Shane Mosley (1.3 million) and Marquez last year.
Pacquiao also lured the fans to the venue with a fullhouse 16,328 crowd, resulting in gate revenues of $10.9 million from 15,403 tickets sold. There were 908 complimentary tickets.
Pacquiao-Marquez 3 drew 16,389 fans, just a shade lower than Pacquiao-Mosley which lured 16,412. In addition, 11,504 closed-circuit seats were sold for an additional $575,000.
In comparison, Floyd Mayweather’s comeback fight against Marquez in 2009 drew 13,116 fans for gate sales of $6.8 million.