Tough ticket

Buzz in Las Vegas escalates as monster fight draws nearer

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Posted: Tuesday September 14, 1999 10:58 PM

Ticket to ride: Tickets are so hard to come by, cab drivers in Las Vegas are swinging deals just to get their hands on them. Allsport

LAS VEGAS, Sept 14 (Reuters) -- Tickets for Saturday's Oscar De La Hoya-Felix Trinidad welterweight title fight are so difficult to come by that cab drivers are asking out-of-towners where to buy them.

"If you can help me get two tickets, I'll cut you in. I got this guy who's flashing money around, asking everybody where he can get a ticket," a cab driver, who did not want to be identified, said Tuesday. "I mean this guy really needs a ticket. He's married just three months and his wife wants to go to the fight. You help me, I'll help you."

It certainly is not unusual for promoters to claim their fights are sold out to increase the "buzz" surrounding a bout to sell more tickets.

But for this fight, signs are that the unification battle between World Boxing Council champion De La Hoya and Trinidad, the International Boxing Federation standard bearer, at the 12,000-seat arena at the Mandalay Bay hotel, is actually sold out.

Economic satisfaction for this fight already seems to have set in.

One sure sign is the lack of interest among promoters in making the fighters available to reporters in the days leading to the fight when there usually is a last-minute push for publicity to help ticket and pay-per-view sales.

Trinidad is such a national hero in Puerto Rico that about 1,600 prisoners in four prisons on the island are going to pay close to $40,000 out of the profits from their commissaries to see the fight, said Divena Freeman, a publicist for the scheduled 12-round fight.

Trinidad's mother is having a huge outdoor screen installed on top of the mountain outside her home in the city of Cupey Alto, where the 26-year-old Trinidad was raised. The Trinidads are making the fight available to relatives who live in 14 houses down the slopes and to the rest of the neighbors.

The HBO pay-per-view bout is being sold for $49.95, one of the highest priced ppv bouts ever.

 

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