Ticket sale for the Manny Pacquiao-Jeff Horn World Boxing Organization welterweight championship encounter is expected to soar with the arrival in Brisbane of the reigning 147-pound belt owner Monday.
Pacquiao and his party of five which includes wife Jinkee, sister-in-law Janet, closed-in security Choy Garcia and assistant trainer Roger “Haplas” Fernandez left Manila Sunday afternoon for Singapore where they were scheduled to spend a brief stopover on the way to the fight site.
The Filipino eight-division titleholder is on a three-city media conference tour in Australia to promote the 12-round titular showdown . The tour, which will test Pacquiao’s drawing power, also includes stops in Melbourne and Sydney.
Pacquiao’s party is expected to fly back to Manila Aril 28 in time for himto agtend the resumption of senate session.
Reports have it that tickets are selling like hotcakes since sale starting Thursday last week but with the arrival of the ‘Fighter of the Decade,’ expectations are high that sale will further improve that the fight might even threaten the set of attendance records at the famous break the Suncorp Arena.
Corporate tickets has been going on sale Thursday last week for the July 2 title spectacle General admission tickets will on sale from April 27. Some 27,000 of those tickets will be priced at $100 or less.
Promoters Duco Events and Top Rank are testing the waters in some ways, with a fight of this magnitude never before staged in Australia, let alone Brisbane. The Filipino great brings an enormous global profile and begins his promotional tour up the eastern seaboard strting Monday.
The format of the seating has yet to be finalised but a figure of 55,000 has been widely mentioned. The actual capacity could be even greater, depending on the final planning and demand for tickets, particularly at the higher end.
Ticket sales will also depend on how many fans will travel from the Philippines to support the 38-year-old fighting senator from Sarangani.
The fight created a stir owing to the challenger’s untested 17-fiht record,winning16r, 11 o them via the short route and especially because of comments coming from the champion’s camp (no necessarily from Pacquiao himself).
Not everybody though has written Horn off as a worthy challenger. Former fighter Paulie Malignaggi said Pacquiao should, in fact, be commended for taking his show on the road.
“(Munhammad) Ali did his thing, travelling the world in fights against Karl Mildenberger and Henry Cooper, and “Sugar” Ray Robinson did the same thing back in the day. So I’m not going to knock it,” Malignaggi told fightsaga.
“You can’t keep recycling the same names. You’ve got to give other guys chances too. Boxing is a world sport an Horn is a pretty good fighter, so I’m not going to heavily criticise this match-up,” he said.(Photos by Wendel Rupert Alinea)