PACQUIAO-DIAZ TITLE FIGHT SELLS 7,000 TICKETS ON FIRST DAY
By Ronnie Nathanielsz
PhilBoxing.com
Wed, 23 Apr 2008
In what may well be an unprecedented opening day sale for tickets to a Manny Pacquiao fight, Top Rank promoter Bob Arum says over 7,000 tickets of the 11,500 available tickets at the Mandalay Bay Resort Hotel & Casino were sold last Saturday for Pacquiao?s WBC lightweight title fight against champion David Diaz on June 28.
In an interview on journalist Dennis Principe?s radio show "Sports Chat" over dzSR Sports Radio, Arum told the "Main Event" TV boxing show analyst "the box office people report the tremendous demand for tickets was the biggest first day sale for a Manny Pacquiao fight ever and they had to limit sales to eight tickets per customer."
Arum said the formal press conference to announce the fight would be held on Los Angeles on May 3. He said he "didn?t want to hold it earlier because I didn?t want Manny to go through the inconvenience of coming to the United States for the press conference, flying back to the Philippines and then coming back for training." Arum said Pacquiao would begin training at the Wild Card Gym of Freddie Roach shortly after the press conference.
Arum has lined up what he termed "an ambitious schedule" for Pacquiao and Diaz. He said that on Pacquiao?s day off he would be flying on a private jet to cities like San Diego, San Francisco, Phoenix, Chicago so he could "greet his fans in all those cities."
Arum said Pacquiao was "thrilled" that the schedule for the promotion was being worked around his training schedule "because his training is the most important thing and we clear everything first with his trainer, the very able Freddie Roach."
Looking at the Diaz fight, Arum said Pacquiao is "faster than Diaz and has a lot more skills" but stressed that Diaz is "a very unusual fighter. He is very rugged, he is very, very determined." Arum said Diaz has a chin "like iron and its impossible to win over him by knockout."
The astute promoter predicted that Diaz, whom he also handles, "will be in there fighting, he will be in there scrapping with Manny and unless Manny is in unbelievably great shape he won't be able to go twelve rounds." He said that is why Roach was "insisting on another two month training period so that Manny is ready."
Arum described Diaz as "one of those over-achieving fighters who will stay in to the bitter end" and more often than not pull off a victory. However, he conceded that Diaz is "not the hardest puncher in the world but he is a difficult opponent for anybody."
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