LAS VEGAS – The biggest event in boxing history is rapidly turning into its greatest embarrassment.
And that's saying something considering the long and mostly sordid history of professional boxing.
It's less than two weeks before Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao are scheduled to step into a ring at the MGM Grand Garden on May 2, but incredulously, tickets to the fight aren't on sale yet. Nor are the approximately 50,000 closed-circuit seats in Las Vegas that are supposed to be available for purchase.
Combined, the fighters are expected to collect upwards of $300 million in prize money between them. The bout is expected to easily surpass every financial record ever kept, even adjusting for inflation. Pay-per-view sales could, for the first time, threaten three million.
If there is an event, of course the rich and the famous won't have any worries about accommodations and tickets, even though there unquestionably will be a lot of very rich noses seriously out of joint when they discover their $1,500 tickets are in the upper reaches of the arena.
The average boxing fan, the one who kept this sport alive and kicking through the many dark years, is being hit hardest by this debacle.
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