Mayweather vs Berto (Photo : MGM Grand Arena)
Unbeaten American boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. is reaping the fruit of his running away from Manny Pacquiao during their May 2 "Fight of the Century." Boxing fans are running away from his Sept. 12 bout against Haitian boxer Andre Berto.
The Telegraph reports that only the cheapest seats in MGM Grand Arena's upper level are almost sold out four days to the fight. The tickets are sold at 80 pounds or $123. The priciest tickets of $1,500 are not selling.
In contrast, during the May 2 bout, the most expensive seats were for $10,000, and it was all sold out. The fans, apparently, felt duped by the high price of tickets and pay-per-view (PPV) subscription and not seeing enough action on the ring. Mayweather blamed Pacquiao for the disappointing bout.
Even Berto is blaming the Mayweather-Pacquiao bout, saying it "left a bad tastes in a lot of peoples' mouth and it transcended over to this side," quotes Kpopstars. Berto boasted boxing fans had never seen a boring Andre Berto fight.
Only Mayweather benefitted tremendously from that fight, earning about $300 million in guaranteed purse and PPV shares which attracted 400 million subscribers. Daily Mail reports that only one-third of that number subscribed for Saturday's bout, expected to be lopsided in favor of Mayweather not because of Berto's weakness, but because the referee, Kenny Bayless, is perceived as pro-Mayweather.
Asked about the embarrassingly low numbers which would affect his PPV share for his last professional fight, Mayweather said he does not give a damn about the number of TV viewers. "Nobody's forced to watch. Watch if you want to watch. If you don't want to watch, don't watch." He made the same comment to sports writers.
Besides reaping what he sowed when he and Pacquiao failed to deliver a good match on May 2, a boxing expert explains the low interest in Mayweather's last fight to the boxer being a bad role model and a jerk. Ivan Goldman, a writer for BoxingInsider, adds that a lot of people who buy tickets to Mayweather's fights are actually hoping to see him lost.
Berto just might do that and punch a hole in Mayweather's dream to retire with a 49-0 record. "At the end of the day he is 38-years old and he's going to have a young, powerful bull on his ass," Berto boasted.
