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Top Rank decision frees up $150 tickets for Pavlik bout
The newly available tickets are the least expensive floor seats for the Feb. 21 fight.
YOUNGS-TOWN — About 400 floor-level tickets, priced at $150 each, for the Feb. 21 Kelly Pavlik middleweight boxing title bout at the Chevrolet Centre will go on sale at 10 a.m. Wednesday.
The tickets became available because Top Rank, the fight’s promoter, didn’t need them for production use to broadcast the fight on pay-per-view, said Eric Ryan, the center’s executive director.
The tickets are the least expensive for seats on the center’s floor for the fight at $150. They’re located on the floor’s back corners, Ryan said.
The $150 tickets go on sale through ticketmaster.com; Ticketmaster’s locations including Giant Eagle and Macy’s; charge by telephone at (800) 754-3000; or at the center’s box office. There’s a limit of four tickets per purchase.
Though 400 additional tickets are available, the capacity for the boxing card is increasing to 7,100 seats, only 100 more than what was originally announced, Ryan said.
The center was optimistic extra seats would become available and that’s why it first announced 7,000 tickets would be available. But until Top Rank confirmed it wouldn’t need the extra space, the facility couldn’t sell those tickets, Ryan said.
“We were in a holding pattern,” he said. “Top Rank is using boom cameras” instead of stationary cameras. Because boom cameras require less space, the added seating capacity became available.
This happens with some concerts at the center, Ryan said.
About 5,500 tickets — priced at $50, $100, $200, $300 and $500 — were sold 30 minutes after they went on sale Jan. 10. Overall, about 6,500 tickets have been sold for the fight. That makes Pavlik’s bout against Marco Antonio Rubio the event that’s sold more tickets than any other event at the center since it opened in October 2005.
Tickets for about 200 seats costing $200 and $300 are still available, Ryan said.
There are six fights on the Feb. 21 undercard. The center will open at 7 p.m., with the first bout at 7:30.
The Pavlik-Rubio fight for the former’s WBO/WBC title is expected to start between 10:45 and 11:15.
skolnick@vindy.com