MANILA, Philippines (The Adobo Chronicles) – Within just fifteen minutes after official confirmation of the May 2nd championship boxing bout between Filipino Manny Pacquiao and American Floyd Mayweather was made public, the fight’s venue, the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, sold out.

Seeing as how this is being dubbed as the fight of the century, perhaps even eclipsing the 1975 ‘Thrilla in Manila’ between Mohammad Ali and Joe Frazier, both the Pacquiao and Mayweather camps agreed to move the venue from Las Vegas to Manila.

The new venue is The Philippine Arena, located just a few miles north of the capital.  It has the distinction as the world’s largest indoor arena, with a capacity of 55,000.  In contrast, the MGM Garden Arena can only hold 16,800 people.

“We want all the boxing fans to have the opportunity to personally witness this historical event, so we wanted to find a bigger venue that can accommodate more people,” a spokesperson for the Pacquiao camp told reporters in Manila.

Manila Mayor (and former Philippine president) Joseph Estrada welcomed the news, saying that this will bring millions of tourism and business dollars to his city. “With all the new hotel and condo infrastructure, we certainly will be able to accommodate boxing fans from all over the world who will visit the Philippines to personally witness the fight,” he said.

President NoyNoy Aquino directed the Manila Airports Authority to speed up renovations and improvements at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) in time for the May event.

Department of Social Welfare  and Development Secretary Dinky Soliman also announced that she has scheduled another ‘camping’ for Manila’s street children and homeless families at a resort south of Manila during the week of the fight to hide them from view of visiting tourists. (It will be recalled that Soliman rounded up street children and brought them to the same resort during Pope Francis’ visit to Manila last month).