By Rob Smith: Manny Pacquiao may be starting to show signs of slipping in his last three fights but that’s not affecting his paydays in any way as we see with his bout on Saturday against Juan Manuel Marquez at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Pacquiao will be hauling in a guaranteed $25 million for the Marquez fight, according to Yahoo Sports News.
With the PPV upside, Pacquiao will make as much as $30 million for the fight. Marquez won’t do that bad either. He’s getting a guaranteed $3 million, but the PPV upside will take way past that. You can make a strong argument that Marquez deserves a lot more than that, however, because many of the boxing fans who will be paying to see this fight on HBO for $59.99 will be Marquez’s fans.
It’s too bad there’s no way of separating this out so that the purses would be a little closer to each other than the 25 to 3. I’m sure Marquez is happy to getting even that, though, because compared to what he would be making against a lesser name, $3 million is more than a bargain for him.
If Pacquiao was his own promoter like Floyd Mayweather Jr., his purse numbers could be a lot higher. There are some boxing fans who feel that Pacquiao no longer needs a promoter because he’s now so popular that his fights sell themselves with the help of the HBO 24/7 series episodes. However, Pacquiao is signed up with Top Rank until the end of 2013, and he’ll likely extend his contract at that time.
Pacquiao will be turning 34 on December 17th, and it’s unclear how much he’ll have left in the tank by the end of next. Even if he doesn’t resign with Top Rank, he’s not going to be fighting too much longer unless he eases back with his competition and starts facing weaker opposition that he can easily beat. One thing is for sure, he needs to be kept away from fighters that move because Pacquiao looked bad against Tim Bradley last June with the little bit of movement that he was using in the fight.