O2 Arena nearly empty for Mayweather's exhibition bout

American Boxer Floyd Mayweather’s UK debut didn’t live up to expectations since there were plenty of empty seats in his latest exhibition bout in London.

Mayweather competed against Geordie Shore star Aaron Chalmers at the 20,000-capacity O2 Arena in London on Saturday night.

Winner is not announced during an exhibition match but Mayweather easily won all eight rounds against his opponent.

During his playing days, Mayweather bagged a historic 50-0 record by overpowering fight legends Manny Pacquiao, Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez, Oscar De La Hoya and claimed world titles in five different weight classes. He retired from professional boxing in 2017 but still takes part in exhibition bouts.

According to talkSPORT, organisers were desperately trying to sell tickets for as cheap as £5 on the day, but still hardly sold any with the entire top tier at The O2 shut off.

Meanwhile, Mayweather said that tickets being put on sale too late was to reason behind the lack of interest from fans.

He said in his post-fight press conference: “We did this in one month – not even four weeks.

“I think the tickets should’ve went on sale a lot faster.

“My new team is still learning. I have got to take my hat off to them, it’s not their fault.

“It’s just when we fight in the US, as soon as we announce the fight, tickets are on sale.

“Here, we announced the fight and the tickets didn’t go on sale until a week or two weeks later.”

It must be noted that boxing promoter Eddie Hearn had earlier predicted that Mayweather’s fight would turn into a disaster.

“Someone has hired out the O2 Arena thinking that they’re gonna sell out the O2 Arena with Floyd Mayweather and they’re going to do a couple hundred thousand buys on pay-per-view,” he said.

“It’s either going to get cancelled or someone is gonna do their absolute conkers, or people are not going to get paid. One of the three.”

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