"The Worlds Most Expensive Fight Ever !"

Mayweather v Pacquiao

Mayweather

Floyd Mayweather, Jr. is an American professional boxer. He is currently undefeated as a professional and is a five-division world champion, having won eleven world titles and the lineal championship in four different weight classes.

Pacquiao

Emmanuel "Manny" Dapidran Pacquiao, PLH is a Filipino world champion professional boxer. At 32 he was elected to the Philippine House of Representatives. He has also been involved in basketball, acting, and is a retired singer.

Mayweather v Pacquiao

The anticipation for Mayweather v Pacquiao is understandable. After all, these are two of the greatest pound-for-pound fighters of their era - one undefeated; the other a champion of six weight divisions. Something has to give. And few sports can match boxing for sheer fervour when it comes to fight-nights such as this.

And yet, despite the barely believable numbers being generated here, they are also perhaps symbolic of a sport that has sold its soul and lost its way.

The fight is generating record revenue for a boxing bout. But much of that is down to the pent-up demand created by six years of negotiations over money, quarrels between television networks, and delays over drugs testing.

OBSERVATION

How this fight is expensive?

This is the first super-fight of the social media age, and it has benefited from unprecedented levels of hype and a recovering US economy. That may be good for the fighters' bank balances, but surely the sport would have been better served if the two men had fought at their peak, not as they begin to think about retirement.

The fight will generate gate receipts of $74m (£48m), breaking the record set by Mayweather's clash with Saul Alvarez in 2013. But given that it is taking place in an arena with just 16,500 seats - only 500 of them available to the public - this is hardly an event staged with the average sports fan in mind.

Tickets have been advertised for hundreds of thousands of dollars, surpassing the level of demand for the Super Bowl, but most will go to members of the fighters' entourages, guests of wealthy corporations, or the casinos' most valued clients - the so-called 'high-rollers' (as long as they have credit-lines with the casino of $250,000).

At the Excalibur hotel - over the road from the MGM where the fight will take place - guests are being charged $400 (£260) just to watch the action on a TV screen in a bar. Fans are even being charged to attend the weigh-in.

Result Analysis of the FIGHT: