Only 3,147 tickets sold for Khan-Garcia fight

By Boxing News - 07/25/2012 - Comments

Image: Only 3,147 tickets sold for Khan-Garcia fightBy William Mackay: The Amir Khan vs. Danny Garcia fight was a dismal failure in the box office, according to Dan Rafael. Only 3,147 tickets were sold in grand total, and 3,364 tickets were given away by the Mandalay Bay Resorts & Casino where the fight took place. In other words, more than half of the people who showed up to watch the fight were fans who had tickets given to them.

What this suggests is that Khan is failing to establish himself as a big draw in the United States despite having fought there consistently for three years now. Khan has been persistent in seeing himself as a future pay-per-view star in the U.S, and is constantly talking about facing big stars like Floyd Mayweather Jr. However, the latest box office numbers suggest that Khan isn’t worth fighting because he’s not drawing fans in the U.S.

I’m not even talking about Khan having lost his last two fights against Lamont Peterson and Danny Garcia, in addition to Khan’s 1st round knockout loss to Breidis Prescott in 2008 which he never even tried to avenge. But the poor numbers tell you that Khan might be wasting his time fighting in the U.S, because he’s not drawing fans here and he’s losing frequently.

Khan and his promoters and Golden Boy needs to put him venues where he can sell, such as in his home country of the UK. I don’t see him ever becoming a huge attraction in the U.S, because boxing fans there don’t like to see fighters that lose all the time nor do they enjoy watching guys that run around the ring like Khan typically does.

Khan’s promoter Richard Schaefer refuses to see him as an undercard fighter and is stubbornly persisting in billing him as a main event type guy. That’s all well and good, but if boxing fans aren’t all that interested in seeing Khan fight, Schaefer is going to have to make some decisions in what to do with Khan. Does he keep putting Khan in main events and selling only 3000 tickets or does he have him fighting on the undercards with a more popular fighter in the main event? Pretty soon it’s going to be comical if Schaefer keeps trotting Khan out as a main event fighter and keeps losing. Who wants to see that?



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