Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing
The Associated Press story ( https://apnews.com/838bfe d9855c4fe9951a25605c506ebc/ Lots-of- tickets- remainfor-Mayweather-McGregor-_-at-a-price) that came out yesterday tells us everything we need to know about the Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor bout next month: It’s not being taken seriously even by casual observers. It’s certainly not making those behind it credible; since it was announced last month, organizers have been beside themselves trumpeting it as the mother lode of mother lodes. As far as they’re concerned, it’s the biggest bonanza boxing has ever seen, dwarfing the record-setting fight between Money and Manny in 2015. So far, though, they’re being taken for fools by the box office.
Part of the problem, of course, is that ticket prices are extremely high, and certainly prohibitive under the circumstances. No doubt, things would be markedly different were a title at stake, and were the fighters slated to do battle worth the time of followers of the sport. Instead, we’re asked to shell out an unprecedented sum to see a retired, way- past- prime, 40-and-a-half-year-old pugilist in one corner, and a brash, in-wayover-the-head 29-year-old neophyte in another. Mayweather’s duck-dip-dive-and-dodge style has never made for exciting fare; he hasn’t knocked out an opponent since 2011. Meanwhile, McGregor hasn’t boxed professionally at all; his advances in mixed martial arts, a whole other discipline that requires a whole other set of techniques, don’t count.
Which is why those banking on the contest to succeed have been working overtime to trumpet it to high heavens. Earlier this month, Mayweather and McGregor had a four-city press tour that went “Spinal Tap” on us and upped the amplifier to 11. Granted, dissing, belittling, cursing, bragging, and all the other negative -ings have been part and parcel of boxing promotions since time immemorial. In their case, it’s to their credit — or, more aptly put, shame — that they managed to call attention to themselves in hitherto-unexplored ways. All in an effort to claim eyeballs. All to sell tickets. All to ensure pay-per-view buys. Not that we don’t realize the reason they’re willing to act like clowns; for all their bluster, though, there’s no way they’ll beat the $72 million in gate receipts and $400 million in PPV sales generated the last time Pacquiao went inside the ropes with some semblance of relevancy.
No doubt, the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas will be packed on Aug. 26. Unfortunately, it’ll be populated by fame seekers and hangers-on holding heavily discounted tickets and, more significantly, with nary a care about the bout itself. Not that they’ll be missing anything. Ask any rational quarter, and the consensus is clear: McGregor has no chance in heck against Mayweather. And, once again, we get an example of why the Nevada Athletic Commission is labeled a “kangaroo court.” It signed off on the spectacle knowing full well the consequences.
So we’re left to digest the Mayweather-McGregor meeting as if it’s the sport’s greatest gift to mankind. We know better, though. We understand that its premise is wrong, and that its promise will be left unfulfilled. We shrug, we take it in, and then we move on, our indifference accompanied by relief that it’ll be done soon. As William Shakespeare once wrote, “It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
So we’re left to digest the Mayweather-McGregor meeting as if it’s the sport’s greatest gift to mankind. We know better, though. We understand that its premise is wrong, and that its promise will be left unfulfilled. We shrug, we take it in, and then we move on, our indifference accompanied by relief that it’ll be done soon. As William Shakespeare once wrote, “It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”