It’s official. The Giant Pacific Octopus at the Shark Reef Aquarium at Mandalay Bay entered the sports predictions arena earlier this morning when he aggressively selected Juan Manuel “Dinamita” Marquez as the winner over Juan “Baby Bull” Diaz in Saturday night’s contest between the two pugilists who are fighting for Marquez’s Ring Magazine, WBA and WBO Lightweight World titles at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas and live on HBO Pay-Per-View.
The unnamed, 1-year-old male octopus weighs an estimated 40 pounds, has a six-foot reach, tentacles roughly three feet long, is the second octopus to predict the outcomes of sporting events this summer, the first being the mollusk Paul in Germany, who went undefeated in correctly picking all of Germany’s World Cup games as well as Spain’s championship win. The intelligent animal chose between two 8″ x 8″ acrylic boxes placed inside his tank. Each box was labeled with one of the fighter’s names.
“Let’s see if the octopus that picked Marquez to win Saturday night will be as accurate as Paul was during the World Cup,” said Richard Schaefer, CEO Golden Boy Promotions. “Either way, we are going to have a great night of boxing from top to bottom as this is one of the strongest events we have ever had for the fans watching in the arena and on pay-per-view. All of these match-ups have the potential of being fight of the year for 2010.”