Pay Per View Numbers for Pacquiao-Hatton

It turns out that the Manny Pacquiao - Ricky Hatton showdown did 850,000 domestic pay-per-view buys (in North America). This is a huge number and truly great for boxing. I'd also expect some huge numbers to come out of the UK and the rest of the world as none of these fighters were American. Bob Arum has been hiding the numbers from the media for unknown reasons (I got my numbers from Dan Raphael at ESPN). I suspect the reason Arum is hiding the numbers is because Floyd Mayweather versus Ricky Hatton did 925,000 pay-per-view buys and potentially gives the Mayweather camp some leverage in future negotiations with Pacman. Nonetheless, the numbers speak volumes for boxing's popularity in a post Oscar De La Hoya world. I could easily see a Floyd Mayweather - Manny Pacquiao fight doing over 1M pay-per-view buys. Such success indicates that boxing doesn't need the Mike Tyson's and Oscar De La Hoya's to survive and the sport transcends its stars to some degree. Don't get me wrong, people love the stars but they also love the sport itself.