By Dan Ambrose: Bob Arum, the promoter for both Manny Pacquiao and Antonio Margarito, thinks their November 13th fight will exceed 60,000 tickets sold for the fight at the Cowboys Stadium, in Arlington, Texas. If this turns out to be the case, it could end up being the largest indoor crowd ever for a boxing match, according to ESPN. Arum had this to say in a conference call earlier today, “This one, I think will go over 60,000. The response to the ticket sales has been great. We’re tracking well ahead of where we were of the [Joshua] Clottey fight, so I’m optimistic.” The Pacquiao-Clottey fight sold 50,994 tickets at the Cowboy Stadium, but a disappointing 750,000 on PPV.

Arum also had projected the crowd for the Pacuiao-Clottey fight at 60,000, but it fell well short of that. It’s hard to pay much attention to the numbers Arum is throwing around, because it’s to his benefit that it sells as much as possible. A week ago, a neutral promoter reported that the ticket sales were at 27,000, and that’s quite a bit off from the numbers that Arum is dreaming about. It’s difficult to imagine boxing fans wanting to travel to a place as far away as Arlington, Texas, to see Pacquiao fight a guy like Margarito, who just recently got his boxing license back after a year due to him losing it because a plaster-like substance was found in his hand wraps last year before his fight with Shane Mosley.

Like the Clottey-Pacquiao fight, boxing fans largely see the Pacquiao-Margarito bout as being a mismatch with Pacquiao having far too much speed and talent for the painfully slow Margarito. This is why it may not be possible for Arum to realize his vision of having over 60,000 tickets sold for this bout. Margarito isn’t well know to casual boxing fans and he hasn’t looked exciting in the HBO 24/7 Pacquiao/Margarito episode 1 and 2. The largest indoor boxing crowd in history was for the 1978 bout between the faded Muhammad Ali vs. a young Leon Spinks. That fight drew 63,315 fans. It’s hard to imagine Pacquiao-Margarito bringing in more fans, unless Pacquiao’s loyal Filipino fans flock to the area from other parts in the United States to watch this fight.