By Manuel Perez: Yesterday, the tickets for Manny Pacquiao vs. Ricky Hatton’s fight on May 2nd sold out. However, it’s a bad sign that it took this long for the tickets to sell out because in previous PPV bouts with Oscar De La Hoya vs. Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Hatton, the tickets sold out almost immediately.
The slowness of the ticket sales seems to suggest that Hatton and Pacquiao minus another huge marquee fighter like Mayweather or De La Hoya, lack the star quality needed to move tickets in big numbers in a timely fashion. I honestly expected this when the fight was announced, because Hatton hasn’t always impressed in the few times his fights have been shown in the U.S.
Before this fight, Hatton has fought against Luis Collazo, Juan Urango, Jose Luis Castillo, Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Paulie Malignaggi. The fight against Collazo looked like a loss for Hatton and he should feel fortunate that he got the victory because he looked terrible. The Urango fight was dull due to Hatton’s opponent.
There was interest in that fight and it proved nothing. The same goes for the Castillo fight. Hatton was fighting essentially a lightweight, one that was clearly on the downside of his career. Hatton beat him but it only proved to American’s that Hatton can beat an older fighter.
In Hatton’s fight with Mayweather Jr., Ricky took a beating and was never competitive in the least before getting knocked out in the 10th. That fight obviously didn’t win Hatton any fans in America. Hatton’s recent 11th round knockout over Paulie Malignaggi was equally unmoving because of Hatton’s choice of opponent.
Rather than going after Timothy Bradley, Kendall Holt or Ricardo Torres, Hatton chose by far the weaker puncher of the mix and got a win in a fight that I see completely as meaningless.
In Pacquiao’s case, he hasn’t picked up fans because of his two fights with Juan Manuel Marquez, which many boxing fans feel should have been wins for Marquez. Rather than give Marquez a rematch, Pacquiao has opted to go for easier fights against David Diaz and Oscar De La Hoya.
The fight against De La Hoya ended up doing nothing for Pacquiao due to the emaciated condition that De La Hoya showed up for on the night of the fight. Pacquiao beat him but in the condition that De La Hoya was in that night, almost any fighter could have done the same thing to him.
Instead of winning fans on that night, I think Pacquiao ended up no more popular than he was before. Pacquiao’s two wins over Erik Morales and Marco Antonio Barrera failed to do much for him due to Pacquiao fighting them after they had been in far too many wars. They obviously weren’t the same fighters that they were before.
There you have it. The reason this fight took ages to sell out is because both of these fighters lack the star quality on their own to create a huge fight of interest in my view. Things could have been different if they had managed to go after certain fighters in their careers and beat them impressively. They haven’t for the most part.
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