MAYWEATHER-McGREGOR PROMISES TO BE A HOT TICKET

Las Vegas ticket broker Ken Solky has begun taking a priority list for tickets to the Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor fight and predicts it could eclipse demand for the Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao megafight in 2015. He’s predicting the Mayweather-McGregor showdown will take place in the “fall or later so they have time to promote it to all parts of the world.

“I think they’re going to take their time to put this together,” he said by telephone from London.

Solky, the owner of the brokerage firm LasVegasTickets.com, is in London for Saturday’s Mayweather-promoted fight between his protégé Gervonta Davis, the International Boxing Federation super-featherweight champion, and Britain’s unbeaten Liam Walsh.

A big step in making the fight a reality came this week when UFC president Dana White announced McGregor has signed his part of the deal. That was followed by news that McGregor has applied for a boxing license in Nevada.

Ellen Sterling R.I.P. Las Vegas freelance writer Ellen Sterling, who was owner and moderator of one of the world’s largest Tom Jones fan websites, has died, according to her family.

She operated TomJonesInternational.com for many years.

In recent years she worked for the Las Vegas Review-Journal and wrote a blog for the Huffington Post.

She moved to Las Vegas from her native New York in 2005.

“She loved Tom Jones and Broadway,” said her friend, Jaki Baskow, a Las Vegas talent booking agent.

Sterling claimed to have attended more than 100 Tom Jones concerts.

When Jones’ communication with the media slowed in his later years, Sterling kept his fans updated with tidbits from around the world.

When Jones vanished from the Las Vegas scene in 2010, she wrote in a May 2013 Huffington Post blog: “He gave various (strange) reasons for this.” In one interview, she said Jones was quoted as saying “singers don’t play Las Vegas anymore…because when you play there, it has to be the hits every night. That’s all they want, and you’re never breaking new ground.”

The scene and heard With Tiger Woods in town for his 19th Tiger Jam benefit, here’s a flashback factoid: Woods was highly recruited by UNLV golf coach Dwaine Knight. Woods got the full VIP treatment on his recruiting visit, which included a tour of six top local courses, the ultra-exclusive Shadow Creek among them. Tiger was reportedly leaning toward committing to UNLV but his father, Earl, put his foot down, and Tiger went to Stanford. I asked a former UNLV golf standout if the recruiting treatment included beautiful girls. The source chuckled: “I doubt that he met many girls on the visit because back then he was pretty much a golf nerd.”…

Many of the nation’s top college basketball coaches converge on Las Vegas this weekend to participate in the American Cancer Society’s 10th annual Coaches vs. Cancer Las Vegas Golf Classic hosted by the MGM Grand. The collaboration between the ACS and National Association of Basketball Coaches runs from Sunday through Tuesday. It’s a private event.

The tournament will be held at Southern Highlands Golf Course and Shadow Creek.

A reception is scheduled at Topgolf at 7:30 p.m. Monday. Must be over 21.

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Video of the day: On your mark, get set, snow! http://bit.ly/ICFCzV

On this day… May 19, 2011: Doug Hutchinson, a 51-year-old actor known for roles in “Lost” and “The Green Mile,” is granted a marriage license in Las Vegas to marry 16-year-old singer/model Courtney Stodden. They tie the knot the next day at the Chapel of the Flowers. It’s legal because her mom Krista grants permission.

May 20, 1964: “Viva Las Vegas,” starring Elvis Presley as a race car driver who turns to singing to pay for a new engine and hooks up with Ann-Margret along the way, debuts in theaters. Made for $1 million, it grosses $9.5 million worldwide and is regarded as one of Elvis’ best movies. Director George Sidney told me the studio called one day in a dither, saying they needed a title right away. Sidney said he wanted something with alliteration and “Viva Las Vegas” came to mind.

The punch line “A 101-year-old man recently became the oldest person to skydive. At least that’s explanation coming from United Airlines.” – Seth Meyers.

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