The biggest fight of the century is 11 days away, but as of Tuesday, the contract between promoters and the host arena at the MGM Grand has not been signed. According to Darren Rovell at ESPN.com, promoter Bob Arum isn’t signing the latest draft of the contract, which he received on April 15, because he claims it was not the contract that Manny Pacquiao’s camp originally agreed to.
Less than 2 weeks from Mayweather vs. Pacquiao, tickets are not on sale yet
Seems bad.
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“We agreed that we would all be signatories on the final contract and then they sent us a draft of the agreement and it excluded us,” said Arum, who promotes Pacquiao.
Not being a signatory to the contract means that Top Rank wouldn’t have control of decisions during the fight, including in-arena production, video content and music.
“They don’t want us to have any say,” Arum said. “So whether they came up with the deal between Mayweather and MGM before or after our agreement, they’ve committed fraud either way. That’s what we’re enmeshed in.”
The upshot of the agreement not being in place is that -- whoops! -- tickets can’t go on sale yet.
Without a signed agreement, a single ticket still has not been printed and tickets to the closed circuit viewing of the fight at MGM Hotels also have not gone on sale. A source with knowledge of the talks said that MGM proposed on Tuesday to be allowed to start selling the closed circuit tickets and any public tickets to fight immediately, with everything else frozen as talks proceed.
There’s far too much at stake for this not to get worked out in the next few days, but that’s boxing for you.
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