#MayPac plays host to the rich and famous in Las Vegas

Ovais Naqvi 00:03 04/05/2015
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  • The celebs gathered in numbers for the big fight.

    LAS VEGAS — The arena filled fast, given ticket distribution delays and deep audience anticipation by fight time. Such has been the frustration of ordinary fans over ticket prices, it was inevitable that the audience attending the“Fight Of The Century” live at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas were primarily wannabes and high-rollers.

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    Ticket prices, while dwarfed by Pay-Per-View, ranged from $5,000 to $300,000 by fight time and will have broken most or all past records, with Teddy Atlas, former trainer of Mike Tyson, commenting on ESPN that it was a hedge fund audience, as opposed one made up of a mass of regular fight fans.

    However, the crowd was in reality somewhat more mixed and very colourful, sometimes sexy and unmistakably Las Vegas in dress code and look: small-time guys aspiring to the big-time, identikit blondes travelling in packs of six or eight, masses of older guys with what looked like quite temporary girlfriends, Las Vegas high-rollers from China and the Middle East, a few long-term members of the fight fraternity, people who look like they might matter and hip-hop-star-lookalikes.‎

    In shape: Mike Tyson.

    As the featherweight Leo Santa Cruz-Jose Cayetano undercard fight began, celebrities who began flowing in were a Hollywood and sports industry roll-call. Jake Gyllenhaal arrived, looking casual in blue and got seated early, as did director Brett Ratner and then sports legends, a trim Mike Tyson and a huge Magic Johnson.

    Most were accompanied by a phalanx of security and It is indeed somewhat surreal to see such legends not only in the flesh and en mass, but more strangely, mixing with each other – one somehow assumes that many of them exist in an ecosystem of one. The camera flashes flared biggest for the arrivals at ringside of Tyson and Magic and the audience affection for these now middle-aged men was clear.

    Star power: Jay-Z and Beyonce.

    Those early names were then followed quickly by inconspicuous looking and baseball-capped Bradley Cooper and Denzel Washington and also by Will Smith, Robert De Niro and Mark Wahlberg. Boxing was always an aspiration point for Hollywood stars even in the 1930s and 1940s and now the relationship is even more symbiotic. Sports stars included Tom Brady, Michael Jordan, Sugar Ray Leonard, Evander Holyfield and Andre Agassi with his wife, Steffi Graff. From music: Jay-Z and wife Beyonce, Mary J Blige, P Diddy and carrying the championship belt for his friend Floyd Mayweather, Justin Bieber.

    The undercard fight started largely in gym silence, but the first roar of the evening erupted as Manny Pacquaio’s dressing room came into shot on the giant TV screens above the ring. Techno music began to blare as the undercard fight ended and the arena started filling fast.

    Major attraction: Sean Combs.

    By the time that the ring announcements began, the arena was erupting both with lights and music, the club atmosphere fully reinforced by the curse of the endless selfie – no longer just the addiction of the young, but the middle-aged male also. Ushers were largely somewhat elderly folk, adding a homely edge to proceedings as they try to keep ambitious, young and sometimes frisky ticket holders from gravitating down towards ringside and the celebrities.

    By the time Pacquaio and then Mayweather arrived, the atmosphere was quite electrifying. Pacquaio was greeted by enormous cheers and Mayweather by a wave of boos, even as his face appeared on giant video screens around the arena and certainly by the time he made his actual entrance. Given that he’s an incumbent champion and American, it’s astonishing how Pacquaio’s Dickensian life story has captured the hearts of American fight fans. If nothing else, the zeitgeist is clear: maybe it is the end of the Mayweather-Bling era.

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