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Source: Abac Cordero, Philippine Star

HOLLYWOOD – The pay-per-view buys of Manny Pacquiao’s fight with Antonio Margarito last Saturday may surpass those for the Oscar dela Hoya fight in 2008.

Mike Koncz, Pacquiao’s chief adviser, said Tuesday that all indications point to 1.4 million buys at $54.95 a pop, and it means total sales of roughly $77 million.


And an extra income of $10 million for Pacquiao, who was guaranteed $15 million for the fight.

Things could even get a little higher than that.

“The numbers say we’re going to hit 1.4 million or 1.5 million buys. The early trackings say we can hit 1.5 million,” said Koncz.

“And my guess is if it gets to 1.5 million that’s the highest for this year.”

Floyd Mayweather Jr., who shares the all-time PPV record of over 2.4 million in his 2007 fight with Dela Hoya, did 1.4 million in his bout with Shane Mosley last May.

Koncz was asked why it was possible for the Pacquiao-Margarito to surpass the Pacquiao-Dela Hoya which sold for 1.25 million.

“Maybe because everybody thought Oscar was just going to kill Manny,” said Koncz.

It turned out the other way around, Pacquiao beating Dela Hoya and forcing him into submission, and eventually into retirement.

The fight with Dela Hoya turned Pacquiao into an instant sensation on the PPV sensation. He did 850,000 with Ricky Hatton, 1.2 million with Miguel Cotto, and 700,000 with Joshua Clottey.

According to HBO senior vice president for sports Mark Taffet, Pacquiao has sold a total of 6.25 million buys since he started with his pay-per-view fights four years ago.

“That’s 6.25 million buys and a total of $321 million in sales,” said Taffet, and the numbers include an average of a million buys over his last four fights.

“The economic situation also played a part in this (Margarito fight). Probably the people chose to watch on TV and have some party of sort,” said Koncz.

Gate attendance to Saturday’s fight stood at 41,734 when fight promoter Bob Arum said in the weeks leading to the fight he was looking at 60,000 to 70,000.

“But the gates are the least source of income. It’s still the pay-per-view,” said Koncz.

“Bob Arum is very happy,” he added.

Koncz, in Los Angeles tying up a lot of loose ends, cited other reasons, the bigger reasons why the Pacquiao-Margarito did well on the TV screens.

“There are a lot of variables,” he said.

“One, people wanted to see how Manny was going to handle being a boxer and being congressman at the same time. Two, we trained in the Philippines and that raised a lot of suspicion on how he was really training for this fight. Three, the size discrepancy. And four, the styles of both fighters. Everybody knew Margarito would come at him,” Koncz explained.