Lukewarm Las Vegas welcome for Pacquiao

Las Vegas has polished its image as the boxing capital of the planet one championship fight at a time, although Glitter Gulch appears not too ecstatic about a forthcoming world title bout.

That’s on Nov. 5 when Manny Pacquiao, boxing’s only eight-division champion, ends a short-lived retirement from the ring to challenge American Jessie Vargas for the WBO welterweight belt.

The fight venue says it all.

It is not going to be at Garden Arena of MGM Grand Hotel, considered boxing’s mother church. Instead, it is going to be in a small chapel—the Thomas and Mack Center on the campus of University of Nevada, Las Vegas, a few miles from the world-famous Las Vegas Strip.

No doubt business booms around town when Pacquiao fights. As a marquee name, he increases tourism in a city driven by events, and is said that previous Pacquiao economic boosts in a typical fight week brought in at least $100 million to the city’s coffers.

But this time the big casinos will have to count on their regular customers, not the high rollers who won’t fly in from all corners of the globe to watch the Filipino senator face Vargas, obviously not the popular choice for the Pacman’s ring return.

Another huge giveaway is the bargain basement prices of tickets to see the bout. The most expensive seats go for $700, against $7,500 for Pacquiao’s supposed farewell fight with Timothy Bradley Jr. last April.

The cheapest tickets for Pacquiao-Bradley III went for $1,500. For Pacquiao-Vargas these are selling for $50, cheaper than a pay-per-view buy usually for $59.95, notes fellow Inquirer Sports columnist Beth Celis.

For the uninitiated, Pacquiao, 37, has notched a record of 58 wins, six losses and two draws.

Vargas, 10 years younger than his challenger, has 27 wins and one loss, and claimed the WBO title back in March with a win over Sadam Ali.

He has won 10 of his bouts with a knockout or stoppage but was outpointed by Bradley in June 2015.

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Even PPV buys, the bread and butter of every title fight, remain dicey. Industry giant HBO told Pacquiao promoter Bob Arum recently it would not distribute the senator’s first fight since emerging victorious at the polls and briefly hanging up his gloves.

The network is obviously concerned about PPV sales following the disastrous 400,000 buys for the Pacman’s third encounter with Bradley, but is shielding its displeasure with Arum’s choice of Vargas by citing several reasons for its business decision.

HBO told the Los Angeles Times the Nov. 5 date for Pacquiao-Vargas “was unappetizing” and would have preferred that Pacquiao fought on Oct. 29, “a date preceded by Tyson Fury’s heavyweight title rematch against former champion Vladimir Klitschko.”

Meantime, Arum’s Top Rank Promotions has approached Turner Sports about distributing the PPV broadcast, and “plans to pursue talks with ESPN and Showtime,” according to the Times.