Top Rank CEO Bob Arum and many others were shocked when HBO announced that they would not purchase Manny Pacquiao vs Jessie Vargas’s upcoming fight on November 5th.
Even more surprising, Arum advised that Pacquiao contract with HBO has now actually been terminated.
Although he did leave the door open for them to do business in the future this will be the first time since 2010 that Pacquiao has not fought on the cable network.
Arum plans on distributing the fight himself but as for HBO, this is probably the best business decision HBO has made in awhile. Pacquiao vs Vargas is not a fight fans were clamouring for.
With the string of dominant victories from junior-welterweight champion Terence Crawford, he was by far more deserving of a shot at Pacquiao.
With a huge push from HBO as one the next stars of boxing, that would have been the fight they were interested in most likely.
Jessie Vargas is a decent fighter that continues to improve, but most believe he doesn’t have a chance to win against the ‘Pacman’.
Last year Vargas was outboxed by Timothy Bradley nearly the whole fight but then managed to land a right hand in 12th round that had Bradley in trouble.
(Credit: HBO YouTube)
He still went on to lose an unanimous decision to Bradley who would eventually go on to lose a third fight via unanimous decision to Pacquiao in April (on HBO pay per view).
After reportedly generating 400,000 buys and paying 24 million dollars in purses combined, the fight took a massive loss no doubt.
Then in June, Crawford vs Postol also had underwhelming PPV buys generating between 50,000 to 75,000 it is estimated.
With Andre Ward vs Sergey Kovalev also scheduled for November on pay per view, HBO can’t afford to pay for both fights, simple as that.
HBO has done what all fight fans should do in the month of November 2016 – invest Ward vs Kovalev.
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