The cash cow has been sent out to stud. Oscar De La Hoya, the best pay-per-view fighter in the history of boxing ($700 million in earnings), is gone and now it's time for the new stars to step up. Can Manny Pacquiao and Ricky Hatton pick up where DLH left off? HBO's Mark Taffet sounds like he has zero confidence the little guys will be huge PPV stars:

"Only fights with Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield and Oscar De La Hoya have done a million buys or more in the sports history," said HBO PPV boss Mark Taffet. "It's unfair to burden any fight with that type of expectations. But we think this fight is going to have real legs in the United States because these guys fight with a style that every boxing fan of every race, gender and ethnicity loves."

Taffett and Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaefer said they'd be happy if the fight landed in 600,000-700,000 buy range domestically. Bob Arum, who once told ESPNRadio1100 that anglo fans in the U.S. don't care about boxing, is now saying Americans are smart and will latch onto to the British and Filipino fighting stars:

"Americans aren't just focused on Americans fighting," said Top Rank promoter Bob Arum. "Americans will go to their pockets and see an event where they believe they will be entertained and they will see two great fighters facing each other in the ring."

The HBO buys don't tell the entire story. It's expected that Hatton will draw huge numbers in the U.K. and Australia. Those two regions may account for near 1.5 million PPV buys internationally.

Listen here after the big fight on Saturday night. Starting at 1 a.m. ET, Cofield will host the ESPNRadio1100/Yahoo! Sports postfight show from the media center at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.