MANILA, Philippines - Bob Arum can find a million reasons to say that Manny Pacquiao can no longer stage any of his remaining fights in the Philippines.
The living legend of boxing promotions was asked recently about the possibility, and he had a ready answer.
“Zero,” said Arum, citing a one major reason why Pacquiao can no longer fight at home.
“We’re doing gates now in Las Vegas from $11 million to $12 million,” said the chief of Top Rank Promotions.
That’s as much as P473 million in ticket sales alone even if the bulk of the boxers’ earnings come from the guaranteed purse and pay-per-view sales.
As of yesterday, there’s just a couple left of the tickets worth $1,200, $900, $600, $400 and $200 for Pacquiao’s Nov. 12 fight with Juan Manuel Marquez.
It’s a guaranteed sell-out.
There are close to 17,000 seats at the MGM Grand, the fight venue, and Arum told ESPN.com that almost translates to $11.7 million. They also expect to break 1.4 million PPV hits at $54.95 a pop.
On the internet, ticket prices for Pacquiao-Marquez Part 3 have sky-rocketed, and the best seats in the house are already selling for as high as $17,000 or P730,000.
It will be impossible to sell tickets at such a price in the Philippines where millions live way below the poverty level.
The last time Pacquiao fought in the Philippines was in July of 2006 against Mexican Oscar Larios at the Big Dome.
Front-row tickets to the fight that went the distance were at $1,000. But organizers ended up giving them away, at least some of them.
Not in the United States, particularly in Las Vegas, the gambling capital of the world.
Another problem of holding a Pacquiao fight in the Philippines is the time difference.
“The problem is you have to hold the fight in the Philippines early Sunday morning,” said Arum, so it will be prime time in the US.
“And all the newspapers (in the US) have to send their writers to come all the way here when it’s tough enough to get them to Las Vegas,” he added.
“Even then it was a problem,” Arum also said, citing the case of the iconic trilogy between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier in the 1970s.
“The first two Ali-Frazier fights did better than the one in Manila,” he said, referring to the 1975 heavyweight battle, which he helped promote, also at the Big Dome.
In short, there won’t be another “Thrilla in Manila.”