The exhibition boxing match between Manny Pacquiao and Buakaw Banchamek is finally starting to come together. The two men will face off at the Impact Arena in Bangkok on April 20th.
The fight will consist of six rounds which will each be three minutes long. There will be a two minute break between rounds, slightly longer than in traditional boxing.
There will also be a cash prize for the winner. The organizers stated that this will be ‘at least 10 million baht ($289,000 USD)’ but it isn’t clear whether this is in addition to, or instead of their regular purse.
Pacquiao is used to fighting for much bigger purses, although he has probably been forced to reduce his demands since swapping professional boxing for exhibition bouts. For Buakaw this would be a significant sum and if the Thai needed any extra incentive to train for his boxing debut then the cash prize will surely provide it.
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Glory days
During his heyday Pacquiao earned as much as $120mn USD per fight. This was his biggest ever purse and he earned it for the 2016 fight with Floyd Mayweather that broke all box office records.
Those glory days are over and in recent years Pacquiao has been more focused on politics. But after an unsuccessful presidential campaign the 45 year old clearly wants to get back in the ring again.
The fight is being bankrolled by Thai companies Fresh Air Festival and SF Corporation. They claim to have a budget of 875mn baht ($25mn USD) and if that is the case most of the money will probably be going to Pacquiao.
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New experience
Boxing will be a totally new experience for Buakaw. He has spent his entire career competing under kickboxing and Muay Thai rules and has switched to the sweet science relatively late in life.
At 41 he is a few years younger than Pacquiao and has also been competing much more regularly, albeit under completely different rulesets. The 12,000 capacity Impact Arena has not hosted a boxing match since 2018, when Srisaket Sor Rungvisai fought Iran Diaz on a ONE Championship card.
Conor McGregor wants to fight Pacquiao and that could be a much bigger payday for the Filipino. Interest in his fight with Buakaw will be much more local but people in Thailand are guaranteed to tune in.
