After going through every detail, Manny Pacquiao has finally inked the multimillion-dollar contract to his Dec. 6 ?Dream Match? with Oscar dela Hoya at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
Pacquiao?s lawyer, Franklin Gacal, said the 29-year-old superstar from Gen. Santos City needed a few days to dissect the contract that was forwarded them by Top Rank days earlier before signing it.
?Now it?s finally and officially signed, sealed and delivered,? said Gacal over the phone yesterday, adding that Pacquiao will leave for the US Sunday evening after a press conference in the afternoon.
He leaves with his Pinoy trainers Buboy Fernandez and Nonoy Neri, and Gacal.
Gacal reiterated that Pacquiao is ?very happy and contended? with what he?s getting in the fight which actually started as a dream of the legendary boxing commentator Larry Merchant.
Now it?s a reality, and it?s been dubbed ?Dream Match.?
?It started out as a fantasy, Larry Merchant suggested it and then ESPN ran with it and it was a dream nobody thought it would happen and now it?s a reality. Everybody liked that title,? Arum told DZSR radio program ?Sports Chat.?
Pacquiao reportedly stands to get no less than $10 million for this fight although he said the official amount is being kept in secrecy unless someone privy to the negotiations squeals.
Dela Hoya seemed to have changed his mind on retirement. Gacal said he even heard reports that Golden Boy would call for a rematch if he loses to Pacquiao in their 147-lb contest.
The Pinoy champ, on the other hand, wants two more fights after this one, then retire and join politics. He?s seriously looking at Ricky Hatton for his next fight.
The British superstar is ready for it, more so if he wins his November bout with Paul Malignaggi for the IBO and IBF light-welterweight crown.
His father, Ray Hatton, was quoted as saying he didn?t want to get involved ?in any controversy by commenting on the Pacquiao-Dela Hoya fight? but added, ?it?s a very, very big fight and it will be interesting to see what the outcome is.?
Top Rank president Bob Arum told www.insidesports.ph that tickets to the fight of the year, pegged as high as $1,500 and as low as $250, might actually be sold out before they come out.
Arum said in an interview that he will sit down with Golden Boy on Thursday in Las Vegas, and only then will he see how many more tickets would be left for the boxing public.
Arum told the brand-new sports website that Golden Boy needs 5,000 tickets, about the same number which Top Rank needs. The venue can hold up to 17,000 fans.
?What you are going to see is the biggest scalping in the history of boxing. At the end of the day we?re gonna disappoint a lot of people if we won?t be able to get seats for them.
?And the numbers that they require because usually you get orders for two seats, four seats. Now I get orders for hundreds of seats,? Arum told www.insidesports.ph.
?Ringside tickets that costs $1,500 are going to be listed by brokers on the Internet for $30-35,000. You are going to see something that is absolutely crazy,? he continued.
The promo tour begins Oct. 1 at the Statue of Liberty in New York and would take both fighters to San Francisco, Los Angeles, Houston and San Antonio.
As in previous big fights, HBO will come up with a special looking deeper into the training camps of both fighters, and how the world looks up to the coming fight.
