Mayweather vs. Canelo tickets sell out in 24 hours

As a boxing fan, I run into a lot of people who tell me, “I stopped watching boxing after Tyson,” or, “Boxing is dead. I’m an MMA fan.” (I also run into a fair number of people who say they were Golden Glove Champions in past lives, but I digress.)

This week, it became apparent that, not only is boxing not dead, people are watching — and paying. Ticket sales for Floyd Mayweather vs. Canelo Alvarez, September 14 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, which is being billed as “TheOne”, proved as much. Ticket prices ranging from $350 for the “cheap seats” to $2,000 did not deter boxing fans who packed phone lines on Tuesday to try to score tickets. Seats priced at $350 sold out in minutes, and all tickets were sold out within 24 hours. As of this writing, the popular ticket resale site, stubhub.com, had 981 tickets available for the fight, starting at $930 for upper-level tickets.

For those that could not get tickets, Golden Boy Promotions announced that six Las Vegas Strip hotels would be offering closed circuit viewing of the fight card. ARIA, MGM Grand, Mandalay Bay, The Mirage, Monte Carlo and New York-New York will be showing the fight, and fight fans can get their hands on these $100 tickets June 28th starting at 12:00 PST. They can be purchased via ticketmaster.com or the individual properties’ websites.

Golden Boy Promotions has brought the press tour for “The One” to the fans, stopping at eleven cities to promote the fight. The press tour comes to Phoenix this Tuesday, July 2nd at the Herberger Theater Center at 222 E. Monroe Street in Phoenix. Doors open at 11:00 a.m., and the press conference starts at 12:00 p.m. The press conference is open to the public. Get there early — if the prior tour stops are any indication, the Herberger Theatre will be packed.

Next time somebody says, “I stopped watching boxing after Tyson,” I’m going to respond, “But you watched Mayweather-Canelo, didn’t you?” And I’ll be right.

Follow @Vincemarotta