Roughly two month before Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao meet on the top of the squared ring, Top Rank Promotions chief Bob Arum is predicting that the super fight set on May 2, 2015 at the MGM Grand Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada in the United States will net around four to five million pay-per-view, or PPV, buys to blast the previous record set by Mayweather vs. Oscar De La Hoya which garnered around 2.5 million PPV buys back in 2007.

“I think it’s gonna do over 4 million, it might be closer to 5 million,” Arum confidently declared during an ESPN Friday Night Fights interview.“I mean the interest in unbelievable. People who don’t follow sports, and who certainly don’t follow boxing are caught up in this event. Everywhere I go, people are talking about it.”

Arum’s bold prediction means that he’s banking on the over on the Total Pay-Per-View Buys betting odds which is set at 3.15 million by some sportsbooks. The line is one of the exotic bets available for the Mayweather vs. Pacquiao fight in various betting lines. The more traditional line, pick-the-winner has Mayweather the slight favourite at minus-275 and Pacquiao at plus-215. A $275 bet on the undefeated American will net $100 and a $100 bet on the Filipino underdog will earn $215.

Another record that is expected to be broken is the all-time PPV venue record set by Mayweather vs. Canelo Alvarez which produced earnings of $150 million and the all-time gate record set by the same fight with over $20 million.

“Ticket demand is the greatest, by far, that I’ve ever seen. I’ve never seen anything like it. I mean maybe it’s the fact that the 1% has so much money, that money doesn’t really mean anything,” Arum added in the same interview. “I’ve been offered for top ringside seats $100,000 a seat, I mean that seems to me to be crazy. I said raise it to $200,000 and you could have my seat.”

Boxing observers are already calling the fight as a “non-mass event” because of the high demand by celebrities and famous personalities who want to be watch the huge event. With skyrocketing ticket prices, most are saying that average boxing fans won’t be able to afford to watch the bout live or won’t have easy access in getting the tickets.

The Mayweather vs. Pacquiao super fight, which took about four to five years to be finalised, is pegged to be the biggest fight in the history of the sport. And Arum’s bold predictions just about confirms that the hype is real and the all-time boxing PPV records can potentially be shattered come fight night.

To contact author of this article, email j.quizon@IBTimes.com.au

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