I was just reading an interview on the scene of boxing with Frank Warren and still insists that Calzaghe /Pavlik would of been huge ..He also felt that Pavlik Calzaghe would have been bigger than the Jones fight ..I'd like to see the numbers for the Hopkins fight to see if he indeed has a case ..
Lampley hinted during the fight that the PPV bonuses might not be very good for both fighters because the fight wasn't excpected to sell well.
Low, but pretty much what was expected. Taylor-Pavlik II did similar numbers on PPV, and Hopkins has never been a big draw. The state of the economy didn't do them any favors either.
His point was that it really doesn't help a fight between two less than stellar bread winners when people are looking to be more stingy with their cash. Pavlik isn't a PPV draw. He does good/great with the live houses it seems (Boardwalk seems to sell out always when he's there) but his PPV value seems pretty tepid. I don't know why HBO and Arum keeps trying to peg him on PPV.
I was poking fun but ,even if th economy was good I highly doubt that the casual fan would have brought into this fight as well ..
Good. I hope Golden Greed Promotions lost $$$$ on this one, this was a WCB fight if there ever was one. Had it been at 160 and the Middleweight Title on the line, that would have been different. Same thing next week with Chavez-Vanda II. Thats a Telemundo fight if there ever was one.
The words for today are "Silly Catchweight Fights...for aging boxers." For example, If Bernard Hopkins fights Kelly Pavlik at Kelly's middleweight belt level, and beats him, then people can provide all the accolades to Hopkins. Right now with these catchweight fights its all about the money and proves little. Boxing is becoming more like wrestling with these silly fights, e.g., Pacman vs De La Hoya. Oh, Hopkins TKO's De Lay Hoya...does that make De La Hoya one dimensional ? BHop and Pavlik proved nothing. Pavlik still has the middleweight belt. And, a nice fat paycheck. It's all showmanship, snake oil and mirrors. Let BHop fight Kelly P at the middleweight level for the championship. In fact, let BHop fight any champion at the respective weight class for all the marbles, then when he becomes a champion again we can all say how great he is. These catchweight fights just provide aging fighters like BHop with a few more pay days. They are basically exhibition fights with no meaning, no title belt on the line, and have no impact on historical greatness. I don't recall if Ali, Marciano, L. Lewis, Tony Zale, R. Graziano, Sugar Ray, fought at these catchweight fights for non-title belts. Maybe they did. But, it seems boxing has changed and these fights are more or less a day at the gym for these professionals who can easily pull the wool over your eyes. If I was a 26 year old middleweight champion (with many more fights on the horizon) and I was offered 3 million to fight a 43 year old and my belt was not on the line, hell yeah--I'll take the money. Just my opinion. KMcDee
