By Chris Williams: What was normally always free will now cost boxing fans $10 to witness the weigh-in between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao a day before their fight on May 2nd at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum suggested that it would be a good idea to sell tickets to the weigh-in in order to help pay for security for crowd control and to have money to give to charity, according to Dan Rafael of ESPN.

Top Rank, the promoters for Pacquiao, will done their money from the weigh-in to the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health in Las Vegas. Mayweather Promotions will donate their money to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation, a breast cancer charity.

The thing with charging boxing fans for what was normally always a free thing in attending weigh-ins is that this is something that could possibly become routine in the future. Once the door has been opened to charging boxing fans to attend a simple weigh-in where there is absolutely no competition going on, it could lead to other promoters charging fans to attend weigh-ins in the future.

They can always use the same excuse about needing money for crowd control security instead of the money coming out of their own pockets or the pockets of the hotel staff. Arum says the money is going to charity, but obviously not all of it is.

Some of it, likely a good portion, is going to go to security. The question is who normally pays for that security? Is it the promoters or the hotel? If it’s the promoter who pays for the security, then this doesn’t seem like a selfless act, does it?

“I suggested it a few weeks ago. I said we should sell tickets to the weigh-in as long as the money goes to charity,” Arum said via Dan Rafael of ESPN.com. “It’s a good idea because nobody is going to profit and the charge will be reasonable. If [it] goes to charity, that’s a good thing, right?”

Tickets for the fight still haven’t gone on sale yet despite the fact that the fight is less than three weeks away. There’s still some issues between the promoters and the MGM Grand.

Somehow it’s not surprising that admission to the weigh-in is now costing boxing fans money instead of being free. With the huge increase in pay-per-view costs in going from $75 to $99.95, it doesn’t surprise one that there’s a charge on seeing a simple weigh-in. Some boxing fans are going to be turned completely off by this move because it’s not just the weigh-in that fans are having to pay for.

The ticket prices have gone sky high for this fight, beyond the reach of a lot of fans. And the PPV prices are out very costly, and there’s not much of an undercard to go along with the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight. Here’s the undercard for the fight. You tell me if you thinks it’s great:

Vasyl Lomachenko vs. Gamalier Rodriguez
Jesse Hart vs. Mike Jimenez
Christopher Pearson vs. Said El Harrak
Leo Santa Cruz vs. Zsolt Bedak
Andrew Tabiti vs. Anthony Caputo Smith
Brad Solomon vs. TBA