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Is there a legitimate sales pitch for the Shane Mosley/Manny Pacquiao fight?
By Zach Arnold | December 26, 2010
Today was an interesting day in Japan, as all three Kameda brothers fought at Saitama Super Arena for the “Kameda Matsuri (festival” event and won their respective fights. Koki Kameda defeated “Japanese killer” Alexander Munoz by unanimous decision after 12 rounds for the WBA World Bantamweight title. Daiki Kameda defeated Silvio Olteanu by split decision after 12 rounds for the WBA World Flyweight title. (Fightnews completely dumped on this fight as one of the worst technical bouts ever.) Tomoki Kameda defeated Pichitchai Twins Gym by TKO in R3. The event was titled “Thank God it’s BOXING DAY” but no attendance for the show was given.
The boxing show drew a 13.8% rating on TBS and got crushed by All Japan figure skating on Fuji TV which drew a 29% for the women’s freestyle program.
Speaking of trying to sell a fight, we have the upcoming Shane Mosley/Manny Pacquiao fight. As Steve Cofield and Kevin Iole put it, this is one of those fights where protesting boxing fans are going to have to talk themselves out of impulse-buying the PPV at the last minute.
STEVE COFIELD: “They made the fight. Not a big shocker. Shane Mosley and Manny Pacquiao going at it. Not a big shocker, but there’s a lot of anger out there right now. I don’t know if the response you’re getting is positive. I know the response I’ve heard on radio and on the blogosphere, not good.”
KEVIN IOLE: “Not good. I mean it’s about 4 to 1 against this fight. Shane Mosley against Manny Pacquiao, people are upset. And I think it’s going to show in the PPV results. I don’t think it’s going to be as good as what they think. I… I wish they would have picked Juan Manuel Marquez. I think they’ve had two sensational fights. They’re both in the Top 5 pound-for-pound, Manny Pacquiao obviously number one. You know, Marquez seems to have had the style of Manny Pacquiao figured out and maybe the only guy to do that. To me, that would have been the fight to put on to make. Secondarily since we’ve got this whole Golden Boy/Top Rank feud that gets into things, you know Andre Berto’s sitting there, an undefeated Welterweight with speed, with power… In Top Rank’s defense, Berto hasn’t beaten a top-level well-known guy yet so you might say, what has he done to deserve a fight against Pacquiao, you know, that’s a legitimate argument. I can understand that. But I think most people understand that Berto has the skill and when you see him in there, when you project, he’s going to put on a good fight. I mean, he’s going to force Manny Pacquiao to be better. And that’s what we want, I mean, ultimately this is entertainment and it’s about the customers and the people buying and we want to give them the best possible product. When you’re at a restaurant you don’t go and if you’re going to sell a $12 hamburger you go to McDonald’s to buy it, you try to give them the best burger that you can give. Well, in boxing, if you’re going to put on the fights you want to give them the best product and I think it only helps, you know, repeat business but unfortunately, you know, I don’t see this, dissing Shane Mosley. Shane Mosley is one of the best of this era but he’s 40 years old and we’ve seen a decline in his game. I really am disappointed that this fight was put together.”
STEVE COFIELD: “I remember sitting there about a month ago and both Lou DiBella with Berto was at a press conference along with Richard Schaefer and his guy Juan Manual Marquez and without knowing even what was going to go happen, I think they sort of knew, but without even knowing the final conclusion they were ready to rip someone’s head off so I cannot imagine what those two guys are like today and yesterday.”
KEVIN IOLE: “Lou DiBella… Lou just went off the deep end. But you know rightly so. You know… and even DiBella admits the right fight to make was Marquez, you know, but DiBella said, hey, if you couldn’t get the fight done, my guy’s here, my guy’s ready for this fight, he’s ready to step up to the next level and even though in Berto’s last fight he didn’t fight a very tough opponent, Freddy Hernandez, he was challenged, hey, let’s see you do something to make a statement and he went out there and had a dramatic knockout, really went for it, had a dramatic early knockout. I think that both Schaefer and DiBella have a right to be angry as do the fans.”
STEVE COFIELD: “Absolutely. So it’s going to be Mosley and Pacquiao, the guy who’s put this together is Bob Arum. Now, if I tell Bob face-to-face I don’t like the fight, it might get ugly. He likes you, but you know, you ripped it and you’re going to continue to rip it so Bob’s reaction to someone like Kevin Iole who’s a pretty respected, really respected boxing writer ripping his fight?”
KEVIN IOLE: “It depends who we’re talking about. Well, I had a conversation with Bob yesterday and he disagrees with me but he understands, you know, it’s not a personal thing and I think that criticism about it is just about, hey, I am advocating for what I believe is best for the public and best for the sport of boxing and I understand Bob, Bob makes a couple of points that I understand because I understand the PPV industry and sometimes the people in boxing, the fans, don’t understand how PPV works and Bob is right when he says that it’s really the casual fans, the fan who maybe watches one or two fights a year who determine a success or a failure of a PPV because all of us who are the hardcore fans, you know, the ones who tape ESPN2’s Friday Night Fights and watch ShoBox, you know, I have on my DVR I have ShoBox set to automatically record, I have HBO fights that automatically record, I have ESPN2 set to automatically record, I have HBO set to automatically record, so I have all these fights coming on and when I watch the Top Rank Live fights in Spanish so I’m not the guy that they have to worry about selling. (The casual fan) That’s the person who really sells the PPV so I understand where Arum is coming from, but I think in this case here is where my argument with Bob is… 1.4 million people bought Mayweather/Mosley on PPV and they saw Mosley kind of lay an egg, they saw Mosley not look very good against Floyd Mayweather Jr. and if we’re saying Pacquiao and Mayweather are the numbers one and two in the world pound-for-pound and I personally have Pacquiao one and Mayweather two, how do we expect it to be any different against Manny Pacquiao? You know, Shane is not getting younger, he’s going to be only four months shy of his 40th birthday at that point and I understand styles make fights but I think Shane has lost enough off of his fastball at this stage that he’s not the same fighter so the argument that Bob makes doesn’t carry water only because Shane is a diminished fighter.”
STEVE COFIELD: “I’ll tell you the big challenge, they get me every time with the 24/7. What’s the hook this time? They can’t get me, I know they can’t.”
KEVIN IOLE: “Well you know what I think they’re going to do on the 24/7 this time is they’re going to play up the discontent. I think they’re’ going to talk Shane Mosley about, hey, are you an old man and they’re going to talk Nazim Richardson about that, they’re going to talk to fans, we’re going to you know just like we saw in 24/7 on the Pacquiao/Margarito fight where they very had on and maybe to some people said overkill talked about the hand wrap issue with Margarito, they’re going to do the same thing with Shane Mosley and they’re going to, you know, discuss how there was a lot of animosity toward the fight and people didn’t think he should have gotten the fight and I think that’s what is going to be the angle and it’s going to be, you know, Shane Mosley, you know what, I’m going to prove all of you doubters wrong.”
Topics: Boxing, Japan, Media, Zach Arnold | 8 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Too bad ‘Uncle’ Bob also went about trashing Mosley following the Mora debacle (deservingly so), so he’s (as usual) completely insincere with his arguments and statements. Then again, he’s the man who coined “Yesterday I was lying, today I’m telling the truth”, so no shock there…
GSP/Hardy did over 500,000 easy…. All it takes is a fancy countdown show and a lot of trash talk.
except none of the two are any good at trash talking
I hate Bob Arum and am sick of the fighters Pacman is going up against.
Clottey – A Joke. Margarito – A guy who come off a crushing defat then looked awful in his comeback (also a cheat). Mosley – Took to school Floyd and looked awful in his last fight.
Its becoming a joke. Marquez would of been better. I would even prefer an unbeaten young Berto than Mosley. Arum likes to keep things in house and have his #1 guy fight other top rank fighters.
Clottey was probably the #5 WW in the world when he fought Pacquiao (quite a few people thought he beat Cotto in the previous fight), so I don’t see how he was a joke of an opponent besides sandbagging in the fight itself and refusing to throw for fear of being clocked (which isn’t Pacquiao’s fault).
There is mostly dislike from writers and commenters alike from around the boxing community, but I actually think that out of the choices ready this was the best option if Manny doesn’t want to go to 155 to fight Martinez or go below 140 to finish the trilogy with Marquez. Just a few points that are facts, and my beliefs that contadict with what most experts think
-I hate Andre Berto as an opponent. Ok there no fact or reason behind this besides I think he is completely overrated. He was schooled by Luis Collazo, and walked away with a garbage decision. Then he beats Quintana (who is shot at WW and could barely make the limit), and KOs Hernandez who’s best win is over a shot and blown up Super LW Chop Chop Corley. I can understand the hype, and thoughts of his talent but more deserving of a fight against Manny Pacquiao? I don’t think so.
-Mosely’s loss was to a guy who NOBODY has ever looked good against. The only person to ever really come close to giving him a good fight is castillo, and even he still lost a close decision. His next fight was against a guy who barely fought back without holding or running before the 8th round, and I still thought Shane won that fight by 2 rounds.
-It doesn’t seem like manny wants another go below 147, and in turn agianst JMM. It was also spoken on that JMM asked for way too much of a cut of the profit, some reports even saying he wanted 60-40! So if that’s the case he priced himself out from the get go.
-For all the talk about Manny moving up weight divisions, Freddy Roach has always said that he doesn’t want Manny fighting above 147 (then changed to 154), and that he would never fight Paul Williams. While Paul Williams was just KOd he has always been more suited for 147, which is very surprising considering his height. You would also think that Manny being the legitimate MW champ of the world would entice him enough to want to move up, but it seems martinez is just too far out of reach.
So who else is there? Kermit Cintron? Miguel Cotto rematch? The winner of Bradley-Alexander?…
I think Mosely is a fine choice.
“-It doesn’t seem like manny wants another go below 147, and in turn agianst JMM. It was also spoken on that JMM asked for way too much of a cut of the profit, some reports even saying he wanted 60-40! So if that’s the case he priced himself out from the get go.”
GTFO to all the people bitching that he should fight JMM instead of Mosley, and use the PBF fight as exhibit 1A…did anyone see how f****n bad JMM looked against Floyd?, Does anyone not think JMM might not be suited to 140 let alone 147? JMM was last seen slugging it out with Wanderlei Gatti aka Michael Katsidis and eating an awful lot of punishment (and hard knockdown) against an arm-punching volume puncher. Good friggin luck getting out of round 2 against the current version of Manny.
These people would bitch no matter who it was he was fighting…most of them are sour mma fans that can’t spew enough “boxing is dying” garbage that don’t have the first clue about mma, let alone boxing.
“Does anyone not think JMM might not be suited to 140 let alone 147? JMM was last seen slugging it out with Wanderlei Gatti aka Michael Katsidis and eating an awful lot of punishment (and hard knockdown) against an arm-punching volume puncher. Good friggin luck getting out of round 2 against the current version of Manny.”
While I think you might be selling Katsidis a little bit short I definately agree with the premise. Before the Katsidis fight everyone said Pac Man was too far ahead in skill level for a rematch to be competitive. So he beats up a guy with no defense and has minimal technical ability, and suddenly he is ready for Pacman again? Same thing Berto. I just don’t get it.
Now if Manny drained himself for some catchweight at 138 or something that would be different but the guy isn’t going below 147 again let alone 140.