DALLAS, TX – Less than 12 hours away from the Dallas press conference at Cowboys Stadium for Manny Pacquiao and Antonio Margarito. The last time I saw either was at the great stadium the night Pacquiao destroyed Joshua Clottey back in March.
The personal situation promoter Bob Arum and his family and friends are dealing with right now certainly has put my and many others priorities in order.
However the fighters both attended the Cowboys exhibition game tonight against Miami and Pacquiao was spotted on the sidelines before a formal introduction, that was organized, was made. Many of the approximate 70,000 fans on hand in Arlington cheered wildly for him and in true Hollywood hero grace he waved back and seemed to make contact with each of them.
Those that oppose the fight for moral reasons are not letting up, nor should they. But the huge Dallas – Fort Worth media contingent should pick up where it left off in March. I wouldn’t call the DFW media boxing savvy, but rather big event savvy and that is what this fight is.
Pacquiao was joined by a number of Top Rank staffers, Freddie Roach, Cowboys Stadium security and in the background was Antonio Margarito who didn’t register much reaction at all.
Finally, Pacquiao made his way to the interview area at the two-minute warning of the first half and he was suddenly projected on to the two 180 foot long HD screens (The biggest in the world) as he was last March and he received one of the biggest ovations of the night.
The two fighters weren’t lined up to pose against each other, which was odd. I don’t think the interviewer knew who Margarito even was.
But all in all it was definitely worth the effort to get Pacquiao there to help with an early ticket sale buzz. A nice marketing commercial clip of Pacquiao and Margarito scoring knockouts was shown at least a couple of times during the second half of the game which, by the way, Cowboys won by a field goal on the game’s final play.
