Floyd-Conor will not hurt boxing’s rise
OSCAR De La Hoya took to Facebook recently to offer his disdain for the proposed fight between Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor, suggesting boxing “might never recover” from what he called “a farce.”
UFC president Dana White this week questioned De La Hoya’s motives behind calling for a boycott of the proposed pay-per-view bout. As president of Golden Boy Promotions, De La Hoya has a lot at stake promoting the Sept. 16 pay-per-view middleweight showdown between Canelo Alvarez and Gennady Golovkin. A potential Mayweather-McGregor fight near that date could impact sales.
Bashing Mayweather-McGregor could be more about business than a sincere concern for the welfare of boxing fans. But De La Hoya is wrong in suggesting if Mayweather-McGregor does happen, boxing will take the blow it did after Mayweather’s disappointing mega-fight with Manny Pacquiao in May 2015.
Here’s why: Boxing is in a much better place today than it was in 2015. Mayweather and Pacquiao were the only fighters with real star power then. Once Mayweather won a dominant decision and Pacquiao looked ruined, there was no one else to occupy anyone’s interest.
Alvarez, a huge star in Mexico, but still unproven in the U.S., had lost to Mayweather in 2013 and struggled against Erislandy Lara in 2014. Alvarez wasn’t as polished or popular as he is today. The same can be said for current champions Terence Crawford, Deontay Wilder, Anthony Joshua, Golovkin and Keith Thurman. All are established stars.
Joshua, the young British heavyweight king, and Wladimir Klitschko recently fought before 90,000 at Wembley Stadium. Errol Spence Jr. went to England last week and won the IBF welterweight title from Kell Brook before a sellout crowd of 27,000 in Sheffield.
On June 17, Andre Ward and Sergey Kovalev will meet in Las Vegas in a much-anticipated rematch of their light heavyweight championship fight. And more than 40,000 tickets have been sold in Brisbane for Pacquiao’s July 2 fight with Jeff Horn, making it the biggest boxing crowd ever in Australia.
The boxing business is booming with more established stars than it had in 2015.
Boxing fans are also smart enough to know Mayweather-McGregor is more of an event than some sort of litmus test for the sport. It’s up to the consumer — boxing fan or MMA follower — to decide whether to watch it or not.
Mayweather should dominate McGregor, the best mixed martial artist on the planet, in a boxing match. If the fight is one-sided as expected, how does that keep a boxing fan from watching Spence-Thurman or Joshua-Wilder or Triple G against anybody?
Mayweather-McGregor can’t harm boxing the way Mayweather-Pacquiao did. george.willis@nypost.com