MANILA, Philippines — The moment tickets for the May 7 welterweight fight between Manny Pacquiao and Shane Mosley went on sale in the US on Monday, fight fans immediately gobbled up the tickets that in less than three hours from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. (West Coast time), all but 1,000 seats of the 16,000 had been sold. Hall of Fame promoter Bob Arum, usually accustomed to even the most outrageous hyperbole, was ecstatic when told about the ticket sales.
“Incredible. Simply incredible,” said Arum, who is bringing Pacquiao back to Sin City after an absence of one year.
The MGM Grand, the frontrunner in hosting big-time boxing in Las Vegas, is expected to be filled to capacity by fight night.
Tickets are priced at $1,000, $750, $500, $300 and $150 but only the premium $1,000, $750 and $300 are available to the paying public after the initial sales onslaught that Arum said he hadn’t seen in his 45 years of promoting boxing.
While Arum was totally blown away by it, Pacquiao’s Canadian adviser Mike Koncz was not as pumped, stressing he had expected that to happen.
“Vegas missed Manny a lot since the last time he fought there was in November 2009 (against Miguel Cotto),” Koncz said.
Koncz said ticket brokers might have something to do with the huge opening day sales but it goes without saying that Pacquiao fever remains at its peak.
The strong showing in the gates is a sign that the fight is going to have an impact on pay-per-view sales.
Arum is upbeat that Pacquiao-Mosley would register monster numbers in PPV under the CBS-Showtime banner.
