Boxing

De La Hoya Sells Out

While you may think from the title that I’m referring to his choice to fight the undersized Manny Pacquiao and his 0% chance of winning, in order to get the largest payday, I’m actually referring to that farce of a boxing match selling out all of it’s tickets. Of course, when you’re only selling 500 of them, you’re bound to run out quickly.

The Oscar De La Hoya vs. Manny Pacquiao debacle sold out nearly instantly, creating boxing’s second largest gate ever — nearly $17 million.

Here’s quotes from two idiots spinning the ticket sales:

Idiot number one, Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer:

“This is just a reflection of the overwhelming interest in this mega-event and we are extremely delighted that tickets sales were so swift. The matchup is one of the best in boxing and will be one of the biggest events the sport has ever seen.”

Idiot number two — Bob Arum, Top Rank promoter:

“This is fantastic and shows the magnitude and appeal of this event. When you have two superstars like Manny Pacquiao and Oscar De La Hoya fighting each other, the public is going to respond, and that is what they just did. No one wants to miss this one.”

“It’s a hot, hot fight. People will be screaming for tickets. How many fights that people go crazy about do $17 million, all in? But this fight is at $17 million and that does not even include the revenue that will be generated from the closed circuit, the pay-per-view, the foreign [television] sales and the sponsorships.”

Now, they’re not idiots all of the time, they’re just idiots for thinking that these numbers equal interest in the fight. For the 16,000 seat MGM Grand Garden Arena, only 500 went on sale to the general public. That’s right ONLY 500 TICKETS WERE AVAILABLE!

So you take two promoters, set the prices ridiculously high, then buy all the tickets yourself and you magically have a sellout with a huge gate and everybody talking about it.

You can’t say there’s massive interest in the fight when you bought all the tickets yourself. This is pathetic marketing for a farce of a fight.

I hope Schaefer, Arum, Larry Merchant, Dan Rafael and everyone else who pushed for this fight to happen can look at themselves when Pacquiao is seriously injured by fighting a much larger man. There is a legitimate chance that this is Pacquiao’s final fight, so I sure hope all of this money and press is worth it to those who forced this fight to happen.

To save myself the effort in December, here’s my official prediction: Oscar by brutal knockout, everyone who didn’t profit off of the fight feels extreme regret and remorse for the rest of their lives for letting this fight happen.

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