By John F. McKenna (McJack): Fight week is always an interesting and exciting time for boxing fans. And although WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao (54-3-2, 38 KO’s) is heavily favored in the pre fight betting in his match with World Boxing Organization (WBO) light welterweight champion Timothy Bradley (28-0-1 NC, 12 KO’s) many boxing fans are caught up in the hype and believe that “Desert Storm” is about to pull off a major upset.

It is difficult for any boxing fan not to get caught up in the hype which surrounds any huge fight. The hype machine promoting the Pacquiao – Bradley fight has been active for several weeks. Top Rank CEO Bob Arum has done a good job of convincing boxing fans that Bradley has the capability of fighting “Pacman” on even terms.

But that is what boxing promoters are supposed to do, going all the way back to super promoter Tex Rickard who promoted heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey to the first million dollar gate in boxing history against French war hero Georges Carpentier in July 1921. The motto of promoters from Tex Rickard on has been to give boxing fans what they think they want to see. It didn’t hurt that Carpentier was an honest to goodness war hero in “The Great War” which had concluded in 1918.

Throw in commentary from the leading dignitaries of the time claiming that “The Orchid Man” was the best boxer in the world and you had over 80,000 people crowding into a hastily built stadium at Boyle’s Thirty Acres in Jersey City, NJ. Does the hastily built stadium to bring in more revenue sound familiar? It is eerily similar to what Bob Arum had planned to do in Las Vegas in the event he was able to land a fight between Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. It was the brainchild of the forerunner of the modern day promoter Tex Rickard, who left no stone unturned in promoting a fight.

The Rockefeller’s, Vanderbelt’s and the Ford’s were all in attendance as were numerous entertainers including Al Jolson and other entertainers of the day. To make sure everyone remembered that Rickard had promoted what was called “The Greatest Fight of the Century” he had his name printed on the lower right side of each and every ticket.

Tex Rickard wrote the book on how to promote a fight. The fight pulled in over $1.6 million, an incredible amount of money for the time. Unfortunately, as is often the case, the fight came nowhere close to living up to its advanced hype and Dempsey wound up easily overpowering his over-matched opponent, knocking out Carpentier in the 4th round.

Promoting a fight has changed little in the years since the Dempsey – Carpentier fight. In May 2011 many boxing fans were convinced by Bob Arum’s promotional genius that the faded Shane Mosley had a real chance to defeat Manny Pacquiao. In fact Arum first had to sell the fight to trainer Freddie Roach and Pacquiao. He did a pretty good job mainly because Mosley had a huge fan base and was well known even to casual boxing fans. The fight did roughly1.4 million Pay Per View (PPV) buys.

It will be much more difficult for Arum to duplicate the PPV numbers of the Pacquiao – Mosley fight. Bradley is notorious for not having the ability to pull in fans for his fights.

For “Desert Storm” the Pacquiao fight is a huge step up in class. Boxing pundits have heard all the hype, now they will sit back and wait to see if Bradley can deliver on his words.

A loss is not necessarily fatal for Bradley if he is competitive in his effort against “Pacman”. An early KO loss would be devastating to his career.