Back in late June, Top Rank's Bob Arum announced big plans for a huge world media tour to hype the November 12 trilogy fight between Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez, with the tour starting in Manila and ending in Mexico City, with stops in New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Singapore, London and Abu Dhabi.
But those plans have been altered, Ronnie Nathanielsz reports. The tour is now down to Manila, New York, Los Angeles and Mexico City. This is probably surprising to nobody, as Arum has a tendency to over-inflate promotional plans or expected pay-per-view buys to rather absurd degrees, but it's worth noting that no, Pacquiao and Marquez won't really be globe-trotting in an over-the-top media tour to the world's various great cities (or some of them, anyway). It will be a pretty standard big fight tour, with stops in America's two biggest markets, plus the home bases of the fighters. It's still a good tour, but the sun and moon are not being delivered as previously reported.
To be honest, I'm a little disappointed in the news, as I was kind of curious to see what the turnout for a media event would be in places like Tokyo and Singapore and London (not so much Abu Dhabi or Dubai, because I don't care) for a fight on American soil between two international stars of this magnitude, but oh well.