Pay-per-view numbers for Manny Pacquiao-Miguel Cotto fight

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

HBO announced Friday morning that Saturday’s Manny Pacquiao-Miguel Cotto welterweight title fight in Las Vegas generated 1.25 million pay-per-view buys, making the bout the most lucrative one-night event in the U.S. this year and establishing record interest for a Pacquiao fight.

The pay-per-view revenue was $70 million, marking the first time since 1999 that two boxing matches in the same year had at least 1 million buys.

The numbers are expected to play an important factor in negotiating an anticipated showdown between Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. (40-0), whose September victory over Juan Manuel Marquez had 1 million PPV buys.

Mayweather’s advisor, Leonard Ellerbe, told The Times Thursday night that Pacquiao’s big numbers were helped because he had a ‘dance partner,’ referring to the popular former world welterweight champion Cotto, a star in Puerto Rico.

The Mayweather camp points to Mayweather’s common fights with Oscar De La Hoya, Ricky Hatton and Marquez and argue Mayweather outsold Pacquiao in each. Pacquiao’s May fight with Hatton had approximately 100,000 less PPV buys than Mayweather-Hatton in December 2007.

Pacquiao’s camp argues the buzz around the Filipino fighter is still climbing because of his thrilling performances in scoring a ninth-round TKO of De La Hoya, his second-round KO of Hatton (Mayweather needed 10 rounds) and the 12th-round TKO of true welterweight Cotto set up by two earlier knockdowns.

Ellerbe told The Times Thursday he will authorize co-promoter Richard Schaefer of Golden Boy Promotions to begin negotiations with Top Rank Chairman Bob Arum in the near future.

--Lance Pugmire