Boxing legend Floyd Mayweather Jr. continued his retirement exhibition tour against former Bellator MMA fighter and “Geordie Shore” cast member Aaron Chalmers last weekend in London, but hardly anyone from the other side of the pond only watched “Money” cruise to another ho-hum no decision.
In fact, there were so many empty seats that the promoters opted to cut ticket prices and delay the start time by 30 minutes in hopes that more fans would arrive before the cameras started rolling. Mayweather blamed empty seats on a short window to promote the fight, as well as a ticket snafu.
“We did this in a month – not even four weeks,” Mayweather said at the post-fight press conference (transcribed by talkSPORT). “I think the tickets should have gone on sale a lot quicker. My new team is still learning. I have to take my hat off to them, it’s not their fault. It’s just when we fight in the USA, as soon as we announce the fight, the tickets go on sale. Here we announced the fight and tickets didn’t go on sale until a week or two later.
Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn called him a week before the fight.
” Where is it ? Thirty what? Somewhere between two and four thousand [PPV buys], if that,” Hearn told Boxing Social. “I don’t know anyone who even knows that Floyd Mayweather is fighting on Saturday. Who funds these events? Someone rented the O2 Arena thinking he’s going to sell the O2 Arena with Floyd Mayweather and he’s going to do a couple hundred thousand pay-per-view buys. Either it’s going to be canceled before Saturday, or someone’s going to do their absolute bullshit, or people aren’t going to get paid. One of three.
Fans on social media called Mayweather-Chalmers’ participation “awkward.”
There was a time in the not too distant past when Mayweather was the biggest name in boxing and could fetch top dollar for a few minutes of light work. Whether or not this was a simple case of poor execution or public indifference to the ‘Money’ exhibition matches remains to be seen.
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