UAE boxer hopes Pacquiao-Mayweather fight in Dubai

Should the camps of Filipino boxing icon Manny Pacquiao and brash talking American Floyd Mayweather Jr. finalize a planned 2012 fight, a United Arab Emirates (UAE)-based boxer is hoping Dubai would host the megabuck bout. Dubai-born welterweight Eisa "The Arabian Warrior" Al Dah has called on officials of the Persian Gulf State to stage the Pacquiao-Mayweather bout in the Emirates, news site Gulf News reported. "I believe and I hope that if the right people would talk to the government with the right proposals and promote it in such a way that the government would see the potential of bringing it here (Dubai), then we could have a chance, " said UAE welterweight He said the Pacquiao-Mayweather bout is "the kind of event only the government can bring to Dubai. " "It would sell out the entire city, we are talking about our travel agencies, hotels and restaurants, our businesses and economy receiving a major boost. The impact would be big for the entire market and it would open the door, not only to Dubai, but the entire region. People would come from all over the world," he said. Al Dah made the suggestion on the sidelines of his own bout against Mexico's Miguel Angel Munguia as part of the Dubai International Boxing Championship at the Aviation Club February 2. On Wednesday (Manila time), Mayweather renewed his challenge to Pacquiao to face him on May 5. In a series of posts on his Twitter account, the controversial Mayweather promised to give Pacquiao an "ass-whooping." "It is my hope and my dream to see these guys fight in the UAE. What I'm saying is a lot of people don’t understand the enormity of this event. It’s huge and would require US$50 million to bring it here. But the eyes of the world would be on Dubai and it would go down in history," Al Dah said. — JVP, GMA News