Last Saturday night, I had the opportunity to attend the Oscar de la Hoya-Manny Pacquiao “Dream Fight” at Winnipeg’s McPhillips Street Station Casino. Frankly, it was one of the most enjoyable evenings I’ve had in quite some time.
Not only was the new back-projector screen in the concert bowl at the Casino sensational — best picture on any large screen in Winnipeg — but the crowd itself was an eye-opener.
It was estimated by Casino staff that as many as 1,400 members of Winnipeg’s Filipino community attended the fight, lining up early to get their free seat passes in the second floor bar and in the Concert Bowl.
From 7 p.m. (when I arrived) until the fight started at about 11:05, the crowd was quiet. No one spoke loudly or got drunk, no one was belligerent with staff, no one dared make a boastful prediction or cheer de la Hoya.
However, when Filipino singer Karylle sang the country’s national anthem, the crowd came to life and from that point on, the atmosphere was electric. These people cheered every punch Pacquiao landed and rose to their feet when de la Hoya refused to come out for the ninth round. It was a sensational performance by a brilliant fighter and these folks expected nothing less.
Pacquiao is no longer just a Filipino star, but an international icon and in Winnipeg last Saturday night, he belonged to each and every one of the 1,400 folks at McPhillips Street Station Casino.
Since the fight, we’ve learned two things: No. 1, he’s probably going give away a large chunk of his winnings to the poor in the Phillipines and No. 2, that the event didn’t reach the financial success of de la Hoya’s loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr. in 2007. At least, not yet.
The promoters’ goal was 1.5 million pay-per-view buys, but HBO announced Wednesday that the fight drew 1.25 million pay-per-view buys and $70 million in revenue. The live gate for the fight at Las Vegas’s MGM Grand Garden Arena (15,001) was better than $17 million. Promoters were hoping for $100 million in PPV and $15 million at the gate.
However, despite the doom and gloom, Pacquiao’s brilliant victory over the aging (and, I’m afraid, washed up), de la Hoya is still the third bestselling non-heavyweight pay-per-view bout in history.
According to HBO, only de la Hoya-Mayweather (2.4 million pay-per-view buys) and de la Hoya-Felix Trinidad (1.4 million in 1999) topped Saturday’s bout among non-heavyweight fights and only one other de la Hoya fight (versus Bernard Hopkins in 2004) met or exceeded 1 million buys.
In fact, break even was 650,000 buys and according to promoter Bob Arum, “when every number is counted, the fight could go well north of 1.5 million.”
De la Hoya has long been the draw, but now the pound-for-pound best fighter in the world can probably do it on his own. And with a title fight in 2009 against the British sensation, Ricky “The Hitman” Hatton, there is a legitimate chance that Pacquiao could become the greatest boxing draw of all-time.
And of course, that’s something the people at McPhillips Street Station Casino last Saturday, could have told us a long time ago.
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