MANILA, Philippines – Top Rank chief Bob Arum believes Manny Pacquiao’s upcoming fight with Chris Algieri will do pretty well in pay-per-view sales.
Speaking in a conference call with international media on Friday, Arum said Algieri’s popularity is growing in the US following the great work he has done in promoting his November 23 fight with Pacquiao.
The promoter used Pacquiao’s bout with Rios in Macau last year as a yardstick, saying the Algieri fight can even do better.
“I think we did quite well going back to last November – we did 475,000 buys for the Brandon Rios fight. For a fight that took place outside the country, I thought that was a great number. Now, with Chris Algieri getting the type of publicity that he is getting, which we never had before, for example, I don’t remember ever before, ever, and I am sure in the Ali days it was different, but I don’t remember recently a fight getting an article in The New Yorker magazine. This one was in last week’s New Yorker,” Arum explained.
Pacquiao and Algieri embarked on a two-week media tour in China and the US to hype their bout, having promotional stops in Shanghai, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and New York. Arum claimed Algieri’s appeal soared during the course of the tour.
“For example, if you watch FOX Business News, where Algieri has been on numerous occasions, which fighter they knew better – Chris Algieri or Timothy Bradley – they would ay Chris Algieri,” he said.
The unbeaten Algieri is a relatively unknown fighter prior to his breakout win over Ruslan Provodnikov last June, which also served as his ticket for getting a shot at Pacquiao. Critics have raised eyebrows over Algieri’s selection because of his anonymity.
But Arum disagrees, saying he expects the Pacquiao-Algieri fight to fetch at least 750,000 PPV buys – which is better than the Rios bout and on par with the Filipino’s rematch with Timothy Bradley last April.
“So while it’s true among fight fans that Algieri may not be as well known as an established guy as say Tim Bradley among the general public, more of the general public do now know Algieri than they do most fighters,” the veteran promoter explained.
“Chris has definitely crossed over. Therefore, I think we are going to do number akin to what we did in a Tim Bradley fight which is anywhere between 750,000 and 900,000 [PPV buys].”