It has been more than 5 years in the making, but a week today we have finally have the fight all boxing fans have wanted. Floyd ‘Money’ Mayweather Jr vs Manny ‘Pac-Man’ Pacquiao, in what is now being dubbed the ‘Fight Of The Century’.
Arguably the 2 best ‘pound-for-pound’ boxers in the last 20 years will do battle on May 2nd at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Now for all the MGM has a capacity of 16’500 only around 1000 tickets are expected to go on sale to the general public with prices ranging from $1500 to $10,000, although some are expected to fetch way over $100,000 on the black market over the next few days. It is expected to make more than $300 million in per-per-view buys too.
Pilipino Pacquaio has won World Titles in 8 different weight divisions, whereas American Mayweather has World Titles over 5 different divisions.
Whilst the anticipation for the fight is going through the roof, it is tinged with some slight disappointment that we really aren’t getting the 2 fighters in the prime of their careers - Mayweather is 38, and Pacquiao is 36 years old.
And you have to go back to 2009 for the last time Pacquiao stopped an opponent going the distance. And Mayweather has only stopped 2 opponents since 2005, with one being the controversial KO of Victor Ortiz, and the other being the 10th round stoppage of our own Ricky Hatton. Pacquiao meanwhile stopped The Hitman in under 2 rounds.
Now whilst Pacquiao has a very impressive resume of 57 wins, which includes victories over Marco Antonio Berrera, Erik Morales, Juan Manuel Marquez, Hatton, Oscar De La Hoya, Miguel Cotto, Shane Mosley, and Timothy Bradley to name but a handful, the fact of the matter is that he has tasted defeat, which is something that hasn’t befallen Money Mayweather, as his current record stands at 47-0.
A victory for Mayweather would lift him to 48-0, and with 2 fights still left on his contact this would take him to 50-0 which would be one more than the legendary Rocky Marciano.
The winner of the bout will also walk away with a specially made $1 million emerald encrusted WBC belt, although the much bigger prize is the fact they can call themselves the best.
If you are staying up to watch it great stamina is going to be needed as the scheduled start time is set for 5am, with the undercard starting at 2am.
Check out the official commercial below (as if it needed hyping).