AFTER all the dust has settled on the final weekend of the Football League and the ups and downs have been decided, sporting fans across the world will be turning their attention to Las Vegas on Saturday.

The hype around the long-awaited showdown between Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jnr is understandable – it’s a match-up fight fans have been waiting to witness for many years.

It is just a shame that, like a lot of major sporting events in modern times, so few regular folk will be inside to see it live.

With demand as high as was anticipated, organisers have had a licence to charge what they want for tickets and the paltry few that did go on general sale were quickly snapped up by the ‘haves’ rather than the ‘have nots’.

The richest fight in history will make both fighters millions yet again the punters are the ones losing out.

It leaves pay-per-view TV as the only option for the vast majority of us and I am sure the option will be taken up across the globe.

On these shores, the time difference between here and Vegas means a late night – or an early rise depending on which ends of the candle you like to burn.

But I for one will be doing my utmost to be awake to watch what I hope will be another great boxing spectacle.

I never got to see Joe Louis or Rocky Marciano box and I was just one when Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier met in the ‘Thrilla in Manilla’ in 1975. I was also too young to really appreciate Marvin Hagler v Tommy Hearns in 1985.

But boxing has always been a favourite sport of mine – enhanced like most kids growing up in the 1980s by the Rocky movies.

My first real big-fight memory, though, was a similarly-hyped fight to Mayweather- Pacquiao between Mike Tyson and our own Frank Bruno in 1989.

Again in the early hours, the fight was screened in cinemas this side of the Atlantic but I opted to listen live on radio as a 15 year old.

I will never forget Harry Carpenter’s famous commentary line: ‘He’s hurt Tyson..Get in there, Frank”.

There have been other big clashes which I have been fortunate to see in the flesh.

I was in the crowd at Old Trafford when Chris Eubank and Nigel Benn went to war for a second time in 1993 and also in Vegas – along with 35,000 other travelling Brits – when Ricky Hatton fought Mayweather eight years ago.

And as part of my reporting duties covering Scott Quigg for this paper, I was also lucky enough to be ringside when Carl Froch controversially beat George Groves in their first meeting at the Manchester Arena.

There have been many classics throughout boxing history and this weekend – as a fan – I’m anticipating another.

But who will be victorious? I’m going for Mayweather – on points.

Views from the sports desk

CLAIRE CAMERON: THEY may be in the top flight of English football for the first time in their history, but the biggest challenge for AFC Bournemouth may well be keeping hold of manager Eddie Howe.

After masterminding the fairytale in his seven years in charge, 37-year-old Howe is now regarded as one of the hottest properties in football management, and is quite rightly the favourite to clinch the SkyBet Championship manager of the month award for April.

With very few English managers of the right calibre available, it may not be too long before powerful big-spending clubs come knocking on the Goldsands Stadium door.

NEIL BONNAR: JUST when you thought they couldn't do any more to kill the FA Cup they decide to take away the one thing it still had left. It's very name.

News that plans are afoot to rename it the Emirates FA Cup from next season will be met by a shrug of the shoulders by people used to its proud tradition being sold off at every turn.

Semi-finals at Wembley, cup final day before the league season ends, no more final on both terrestrial TV channels or full-day build-up on at least one.

The magic of the Emirates FA Cup just won't have the same ring.

CRAIG NELSON: I HAVE heard it said footballers try to time it so their partners don’t give birth in the football season.

I can’t say that was upmost in my mind but as a reporter covering Bury it was a happy coincidence my daughter Jessica’s due date was in mid-June.

Yet the impatient imp made a dramatic entrance three weeks ahead of schedule and in a delayed punishment her third birthday has fallen on the same day as the League Two play-off final.

Needless to say, Bury have picked up one or two extra supporters in the Nelson household as they go for automatic promotion on the final day of the season.