BLEACHERS BREW EST. MAY 2006

Someone asked me how my blog and newspaper column came to be titled "Bleachers Brew". It's like this, it's an amalgam of sorts of two things: The bleachers area in the stadium/arena where I used to sit when I would watch baseball, football, and basketball games and Miles Davis' great jazz album Bitches Brew. That's how it got culled together. I originally planned on calling it "The View from the Big Chair" that is a nod to Tears For Fear's second album, Songs from the Big Chair. So there.

Monday, November 20, 2006

We go to the Scorecards


Go figure.

18, 276 people in the Thomas & Mack Center. The second biggest in the arena’s history.
Ringside seats cost $500 per ticket for 9 matches (including all the undercards). That’s like $55.50 per match.
130 pounds for each fighter to make during the weigh in.
Morales weighed 139 pounds and Pacquiao 144 after the weigh in.
10 months between all three Pacquiao-Morales meetings.
First bout went 12 rounds. Second bout had 10. And the third match, 3 rounds.
It took eight minutes and fifty-seven seconds to complete the Trilogy. The introductions and signing of the National Anthems was longer by 2 minutes.
94 punches Manny Pacquiao landed on Erik Morales out of 175 attempts. That’s 54% marksman rate for the Champ. 51 of those punches were in the third round. 1 solid punch to Morales’ left jaw sent him down to his knees against the ropes in the second round and a flurry of shots that sent him down twice in the third.
1 knockdown suffered by Morales in 50 matches (not counting his bouts with Pacman) and that was a questionable one at the hands of Marco Antonio Barrera. 5 knockdowns against Pacquiao in three highly memorable matches.
$3 million plus made by Manny Pacquiao that’s $5,586.60 per second.
$2.75 million made by Erik Morales that’s $5,121 per second.
The first two fights attracted over 700,000 HBO PPV subscriptions. At $50 PPV that’s $35 million. So by estimate, the third fight should have grossed at the very least $17, 500,000.
338 cinemas, 24 cable operators, and 80+ closed circuit venues all over the Philippines;
7 cities and 7 mayors in Metro Manila;
1 school (Ateneo De Manila);
1 radio station (Radio Mindanao Network in conjunction with Solar),
and the country’s #1 terrestrial channel and #1 cable channel to broadcast the fight.
After Pacman’s victory last January, there were 6 billboards in EDSA alone that featured Manny. Before the Grand Finale, there was only 1 -- the humongous Nike billboard along Guadalupe. Expect there to be more after this.
And there are 82 million Filipinos all over the world who are ecstatic over the win (43-3-2, 33 KOs for the Pambansang Kamao).

Eight minutes and fifty-seven seconds. That’s all it took to end one legend and for another to grow and live on. Manny Pacquiao’s sensational third round knockout of Erik Morales is for us Filipino fight fans the perfect end for one of boxing’s greatest trilogies.

Mabuhay ka, Manny Pacquiao.

Let’s go celebrate!



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