Now’s the time for Mayweather-Pacquiao

Through the decades, Las Vegas has seen its share of big fights. But it’s been quite a while since a fight piqued the interest of people outside the sport of boxing like Saturday’s world welterweight unification title showdown between undefeated Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao.

The fight, which has been nearly six years in the making, is expected to break records for the live gate as well as pay-per-view buys and gross sales. The economic impact on Las Vegas, when you include the gambling, could be close to $1 billion.

Think Super Bowl, New Year’s Eve and the opening weekend of the NCAA Basketball Tournament. Mayweather-Pacquiao is not only in the conversation, but it may ultimately surpass those big events in terms of giving the city a significant economic boost.

The two greatest fighters of their generation have won a combined 18 world titles in 13 different weight classes. Mayweather (47-0, 28 knockouts) is the reigning World Boxing Council welterweight and the World Boxing Association’s “Super” champ while Pacquiao holds the World Boxing Organization welterweight title.

“This fight could have happened a long time ago,” Mayweather said. “But it’s the right time now.”

Pacquiao said: “This fight is very important to me and in boxing history. We don’t want to leave a question mark in the minds of the boxing fans.”

The two fighters came close to meeting each other in early 2010. But negotiations broke off in 2009 when Pacquiao refused to Mayweather’s demand that he submit to random drug testing. But that hurdle has been cleared as have the other myriad points of negotiation and the fight was finally made official on Feb. 20.

Mayweather will receive the larger portion of a 60-40 split for all revenue. His name is listed first on all promotional material. He will be the last to enter the ring come Saturday (his choice).

The fight will be televised on pay per view as a collaborative effort between HBO, which traditionally airs Pacquiao’s fights, and Showtime, which is in the fifth fight of a six-fight, $200 million deal with Mayweather. The announcing team will consist of HBO’s Jim Lampley doing the blow-by-blow call, Showtime’s Al Bernstein and HBO’s Roy Jones Jr. as the analysts with HBO’s Max Kellerman and Showtime’s Jim Gray serving as ringside reporters.

Both networks will also work together to produce the telecast, which is being sold for a record $89.95 in standard definition and $99.95 for high definition.

The pay-per-view buy record of 2.45 million set in 2007 when Mayweather fought Oscar De La Hoya, is expected to be broken along with the gross PPV sales total of $150 million, set in 2013 when Mayweather fought Canelo Alvarez. Both fights were at the Grand Garden.

The live gate is expected to be a record $72 million thanks to ticket prices that ranged from $1,500 for the “cheap” seats to $10,000 for ringside. The current record for a live gate for boxing of $20.03 million was set when Mayweather and Alvarez fought.

“This will be the biggest event in the history of Las Vegas,” said Top Rank chairman Bob Arum, a Las Vegas resident who promotes Pacquiao and promoted Mayweather from 1996 to 2006.

Both fighters have been respectful toward each other during the promotion though the same can’t be said of the trainers. Freddie Roach, the Hall of Fame trainer who works with Pacquiao, has great disdain for Mayweather’s father Floyd Mayweather Sr. And Floyd Sr. has no love for Roach. The two have been going back and forth since the fight was announced, and it has gotten nasty at times.

But the 38-year-old Mayweather and the 36-year-old Pacquiao appear to be in excellent shape. They have put in the work and both said they were ready to go two weeks before the fight.

“I have to maintain focus and concentration,” Mayweather said. “I can’t get ahead of myself. I give 100 percent in training and in the ring. I always want to put on a great fight for the fans.”

Pacquiao said: “Style-wise, I am the same fighter I was five years ago. My determination, inspiration and killer instinct is the exact same as it was five or six years ago.”

Both Mayweather and Pacquiao are predicting victory. What else would you expect? But they aren’t sure whatever they do can live up to the hype.

“That’s hard to say,” Mayweather said. “We’ll see what happens once the fight starts. But when all is said and done, I’m going to be the winner.”

Pacquiao said: “I don’t know about the hype. But I can say that beating Floyd would be the biggest victory of my career.”

Contact reporter Steve Carp at scarp@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2913. Follow him on Twitter: @stevecarprj