Boxing gets the ‘ludicrous scam’ it deserves
Mcgregor and Mayweather are only engaging in the sort of hype taken for granted for so long, writes James Corrigan
Why does not boxing draw a line and declare: No way, not under our lights?
nd so it has started. Floyd A Mayweather versus Conor Mcgregor is a real thing. It might seem utterly surreal and, to the cognoscenti, it no doubt is a sickening spectacle, but, be sure, this is actually happening. And boxing has nobody else to blame but itself.
Of course, that sport will not look inwards, because, well, it never has, telling its detractors for centuries that they simply do not understand the sweet science, that they insist on seeing only the blood and not the art. One thing this will not be is boxing’s fault.
They will come over all snobbish about next month’s Las Vegas bout and blame us lot, the pay-per-view masses, for driving this absurd contest between a professional boxer who has never been beaten, and an opponent who has also never been beaten, but only because he has never professionally boxed.
The “real” boxing fans will not tune in – or, at least, say they will not – and castigate us suckers for making it the most lucrative match-up in the history of the ring.
“A ludicrous scam!” Glenn Mccrory bellowed on social media, after witnessing the first bit of panto in the duo’s week-long world tour.
Mayweather and Mcgregor were in Los Angeles to promote but, in Mccrory’s eyes, all they did was demote boxing to WWE status.
Yet, boxing has been going down that road for a long time and they must realise that the T-mobile Arena on Aug 26 is merely the destination.
When he stood there on that stage at the Staples Arena throwing expletives at Mayweather – wearing a suit which seemed at first to be pinstriped until the second glance revealed that those pins, in fact, spelt out “F--- You” – Mcgregor was doing nothing that boxers have not done before. Indeed, at least the Irishman did it with his customary panache, with his countenance lit up in wicked humour, Contrast this with some of the “press conferences” we have been treated to in recent years.
To David Haye promising his adversary to a “one-sided gangrape” before holding up a picture of another rival being decapitated. To Dereck Chisora hurling a table at Dillian Whyte… To Chris Eubank Jr comparing a fight with a German opponent to the Second World War... To Mike Tyson informing Lennox Lewis, “I want to eat your heart, I want to eat your children”… To Muhammad Ali calling Joe Frazier “an Uncle Tom”. The list is as endless as the boxing authorities’ responses were gutless.
On each of these occasions, and so many, many, more, the fight went ahead, with the apologists dismissing the grotesque build-ups as harmless ballyhoo. “Hey, it was just to sell the fight,” they have said, time after time. Yet each time, the integrity of their blessed pursuit has crumbled ever so slightly more. Until it has ended here. With Mayweather versus Mcgregor.
So, why does not boxing at last draw a line and declare, “No way, not under our lights”? This is a licensed fight, which means it has been approved. Think about that and then find it incredible that it was actually the relatively new sport of UFC that threatened to block this supposed outrage.
In the event, UFC president Dana White made a U-turn in March which some called “remarkable”. In truth, it was no such thing. It was as predictable as the Nevada Athletic Commission being blinded by the dollars.
So, spare us the moralising, please. Spare us the sanctimonious vexation, the faux anger, the pious contempt, the bogus calls for boycott. The hype and substance have finally merged. It is all now just one big show.