THE DESCENT
After the farcical scenes at the Mayweather-mcgregor press conferences, it’s all downhill from here
THERE were so many things wrong with the Floyd Mayweather-conor Mcgregor world tour it’s hard to know where to start. As I sat there during the fourth and final leg of the tiresome charade, struggling to fathom what the ridiculous pair were shouting at each other than ‘f**k’ and ‘b***h’, I suddenly felt every minute of my recentlyturned 40 years. I looked around at the thousands in attendance at Wembley Arena, as they took great pleasure in screaming ‘F**k Floyd Mayweather!’ upon Mcgregor’s request, and yearned for the noise to stop.
The truth of the matter is that this foul-mouthed cauldron would have been my idea of hell at any point in my life, aged 40 or otherwise. Not only were the two personas on stage exceptionally unlikeable, the majority in attendance were also the kind of people I do my best to avoid; charged-up fans who were so drunk I doubt they now remember much at all about the whole evening. Unfortunately, I’ll never forget it.
Later, some of those fans – who had been busying themselves by fighting each other before Mayweather and Mcgregor came on stage – rushed the security guards in an effort to burst into the press room upstairs. And even later still, as I made my way towards the train station down Wembley Way, bottles were smashed and shoulders were barged. If this is what’s being attracted by the great light being shone on the sport that advocators of this event speak of, can someone with some sense please just turn it off. We can’t deny the incredible interest in the bout, but is there not something desperately sad about the fact that the richest contest in boxing history is also its most grotesque mismatch?
Please don’t get me wrong, I didn’t attend the press conference with an agenda. I attempted to open my mind because I had wondered if I was being little more than a snob by dismissing Mcgregor’s chances and the event as a whole. After all, I was told that these press conferences would be where the real fun of the whole event lay, as Mayweather and Mcgregor tested their wit against each other. I had hoped to watch these two exchange verbal jousts, and for my intrigue in the mismatch to be heightened, if only by a little bit. But the wit – bar the odd amusing remark from Conor in the early stages of the four-day tour – was thin on the ground. Ultimately, what we were left with were idols for the X-factor generation, as Mcgregor noisily stretched out his chest like a confrontation-craving thug in a bar, and Mayweather threw money into the air to show off his wealth. The odd couple they might be, but funny they’re certainly not.
Behind the scenes, admittedly, things were not nearly as offensive. It was interesting to watch an exhausted Mayweather do his best to disguise his boredom, and Mcgregor’s presence in the press room illustrated his charisma far better than on stage. But in front of the world, as they screamed, squabbled and spat, they brought out the worst in each other.
There will be four days of similar Wwe-style mayhem in the immediate build-up to the August 26 contest. Four more days when certain fans will overanalyse the propaganda and pointlessly score Mcgregor the ‘winner’ of the press conferences, while forgetting he his about to embark on his professional debut against a man who is 49-0. Think about it, if Vasyl Lomachenko - as gifted a fighter as you’ll likely ever see and one of the most decorated amateurs of all time - could not defeat the grizzled Orlando Salido in his second bout, how can anyone make a case for Mcgregor to oust Mayweather in his first?
Perhaps I do need to lighten up and accept – like the countless folk out there who are buying into this nonsense – that Mayweather-mcgregor is an unmissable attraction. But, for now, I’m struggling to see what good will come from this. I just can’t see how this lawless fourday bender of arrogance and insults – that invited accusations of sexism, homophobia and racism – was anything other than a bad taste of things to come.