THE RESCHEDULED HORN-CRAWFORD FIGHT PUT A DIMMER ON ANCAJAS-SULTAN TITLE FIGHT
By Ed de la Vega, DDS
PhilBoxing.com
Tue, 03 Apr 2018
Two opposing views came up when Top Rank?s Bob Arum announced months ago that IBF super flyweight champion Jerwin Ancajas? title defense would be against his mandatory challenger, a fellow Filipino named Jonas Sultan. Their fight was supposed to be the main undercard of the now canceled Horn vs. Crawford fight set for April 14th.
One side felt that the match produced a bad taste in Filipinos who would rather not see two Filipinos fighting for a world title. ?Why fight each other when there are other foreign opponents on the same weight class,? they were heard to say.
The other side felt exactly the opposite. They were elated to say the least. ?It means that Philippine boxing has reached its peak. We are now world class,? they said. ?Other countries like Mexico do it often, there is no reason why we can?t,? they added.
Be that as it may, whatever gains Philippine boxing would have attained by the Ancajas-Sultan as the main undercard of the Horn-Crawford fight are now all for naught.
It?s a huge opportunity lost.
One can only imagine the effects of the huge exposure of two Filipinos fighting for a title as the main undercard fight of a huge promotion.
That is now gone!
Crawford?s alleged hand injury during training forced a postponement of the fight and now Arum moved the Omaha fighter?s challenge for Horn?s WBO Welterweight title to June 9th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
In the meantime, Arum announced that the Ancajas-Sultan would no longer be the main undercard of the Horn-Crawford. The all-Filipino fight would be the ?main event? of another fight card and it will be at Las Vegas penciled for May 26th.
Wow, that sounds really good - a main event fight in some Las Vegas venue, possibly a five star hotel. And it could be on ESPN to boot!
However, as a ?stand-alone? fight, this writer believes the event will not be able to fill out a huge venue, ESPN notwithstanding.
Here are the facts: Yes, the fight will be in a five star Las Vegas casino. The most probable sites are the MGM Casino Resort, the Mandalay Bay or the Cosmopolitan. But it?s not big enough to merit being at the MGM Grand Garden Arena or the Mandalay Bay Events Center. And, forget about the T-Mobile Arena. If one of the two aforementioned casinos will be Arum?s choice then it will be in some basement level ballroom. The fight is just not big enough for the MGM Grand Garden or the Mandalay Bay Events Center even if they reconfigured the seats!
I would not be surprised if Arum sets the Ancajas-Sultan at the Cosmopolitan. That place is frequently used by Arum for fights that will not make it in huge venues but has the potential to attract a couple of thousand of paying fans.
There is a reason why the all-Filipino fight only merits a small venue. Ancajas and Sultan are relatively unknown to US boxing fans. Sultan specifically has not even fought in the US and Ancajas is just barely getting recognized. Thus, the fight will realistically be better in a smaller venue like Cosmopolitan or the basement level ballrooms at MGM or Mandalay Bay.
Arum is banking on Filipinos to fill the venue of his choice. He may be using this to measure how Filipinos will respond to a fight card and pay money to see it. With that he will know where to put Ancajas next, assuming that he beats Sultan. But a win for Ancajas is not guaranteed either. Sultan has pulled two surprises before and he is capable of pulling a third one.
Arum could not be more wrong if he is expecting a surge of Filipino ?fight fans? to come to this fight even if the main event involves two Filipinos particularly, in Vegas.
I say this because Filipino fight fans in the US have not yet matured to a point where they will spend their money and fill out an arena like the locals do in Cebu or even Bacolod.
They are noisy particularly on the social media, but they are only few in number. This can be attributed to many factors, one of which is for years they have been spoiled with free tickets whenever there is a big fight. Another reason is there really are not too many Filipino pure boxing fans yet in the US compared to the Mexicans. Sadly, most are just band-wagoners.
It will take time for US based Filipinos to catch up. In fairness, they are trying but they still have a long way to go.
Now another factor comes into play. Las Vegas has now gone more expensive that people now tend to shy away from the city, particularly Californians. They rather go to the nearby Indian Casinos where their chances of winning are more than in Vegas, so I hear. Another factor is Las Vegas casinos now charged an arm and a leg to park at their parking lots and they tack ?resort fees? which not too many boxing fans need. And, gas in Vegas is not cheap anymore. After Easter, it cost $3 a gallon- something that has not happened in years.
If Arum wants the stand-alone Ancajas-Sultan Fight card to even slightly succeed in terms of live in-venue fans, then his only solution is to fill the fight card with Mexican and other Latin fighters. Ancajas and Sultan on their own will not be able to fill out seats.
That is indeed sad but that is just the reality of things.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Ed de la Vega, DDS.
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