Pacquiao overwhelming favorite of bettors Francis Ochoa Inquirer
November 14, 2006
LAS VEGAS -- This is how big the two of them are.
Planted firmly on Las Vegas avenue is a massive pillar that holds a huge electronic screen which flashes the headliners of the elegant Wynn hotel and casino.
It's main feature is Pacquiao-Morales III: The Grand Finale, and amid the roar of vehicles and the din created by pedestrians and tourists, one can catch strains of a commentator's voice referring to the bouts between the two as "boxing at its best."
Inside the majestic hotel, in a corner room where bettors wager money on sporting events, the updates on the bout's odds are flashed regularly on a dot matrix screen.
So far, Manny Pacquiao, the Filipino superstar who has morphed into a global phenomenon, is the overwhelming favorite at -220, while Erik Morales, the Mexican legend, is a +119 underdog.
Odds also favor the fight not going the distance, with Pacquiao picked most likely to end the match in the later rounds.
Pacquiao refuses to be swayed by the vote of confidence. "Odds are just on paper," he said.
Exactly. And despite the fact that the odds point to a mismatch, the boxing crowd is ready to devour the show, confident that it will be an epic battle between two of the world's best super featherweights at the Thomas and Mack Center on November 18.
In fact, tickets are selling briskly and Shelley Finkel, Pacquiao's manager, believes everything will be sold out by Thursday, two days before fight night.
"All the $500 tickets are gone," Finkel announced. "The $300 seats are almost sold out too."
Top Rank will sell 10,000 seats for closed circuit television spectators and Shelley expects even that to be sold out.
Proof of the appeal of the final installment of the Pacquiao-Morales trilogy is online.
Top Rank's website, which averages about 25,000 hits per day, uploaded a video of a prefight special just recently.
On the first day that the video was posted, Top Rank's site got 250,000 hits. After five days, the number swelled to 750,000, a record for the site, which was launched a couple of years ago and has posted specials of other big matches that Top Rank promoted.
"This just goes to show how fanatical Manny's fans are," said Finkel.
