Pacquiao-Mosley ringside tickets fetch P.3M each

MANILA, Philippines -  They’re buying and selling tickets like it’s Manny Pacquiao’s farewell fight.

“Incredible. Simply incredible,” said Top Rank chief and promotional guru Bob Arum yesterday after 16,000 tickets to the May 7 fight between Pacquiao and Shane Mosley were sold inside three hours.

It was like selling 88 tickets a minute or easily one for every second.

“I have never promoted a fight that has sold so many tickets so quickly,” Arum told philboxing.com <http://philboxing.com> upon hearing the news of what may be considered as panic-buying for tickets to the coming fight.

The fight is set at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Tickets were priced at $1,000, $750, and $300, and are limited to 10 to a person. There are only a thousand left with three months to the fight.

The selling of the tickets at the MGM Grand ran from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday (US time) and it was described as “one of the biggest ticket runs in Las Vegas boxing history.”

Almost immediately, some tickers were already on the Internet with the lowest priced at $450 (almost P20,000) and the highest at $8,665 (an unbelievable P381,000).

Yes, a ringside ticket for the Pacquiao-Mosley fight (Floor E from Rows 1 to 4) for almost the price of a small car, brand-new.

Get a Floor E ticket, the ones now selling for P381,000 each, and you may end up seated beside Denzel Washington or Mariah Carey, facing the camera, your face beamed worldwide.

It will be Pacquiao’s first fight in Las Vegas since 2009 when he fought and destroyed Miguel Cotto at the MGM Grand, also the venue of the fights against Ricky Hatton and Oscar dela Hoya.

Pacquiao fought his last two fights against Joshua Clottey and Antonio Margarito outside of Sin City, at the massive Cowboys Stadium in Dallas, and now he’s returning to Las Vegas, the gambling capital.

Everybody wants to be part of the show.

“Manny Pacquiao never ceases to amaze the world with his achievements. The excitement he generated today with the initial ticket sales makes it feel like fight week already,” Arum said.

He must be grinning from ear to ear, with the tickets almost sold out, and the press tour still more than a week ahead with stops in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, New York and Washington.

With tickets almost gone, the pay-per-view sales, over Showtime, will be the next target.

Arum, for sure, won’t have any problem with that as well.                                     

Now, who says this fight is garbage?