It's Official, Boxing Is Dead! [BLOG]
By Brian Chapman @bchapsports
And with that boxing is dead.
Not on life support. Not dazed and confused. Not knocked out and seeing stars. And certainly not revitalized and ready for a comeback. Boxing is dead and the time of death was just after 1 a.m. EST on May 3, 2015 when the Mayweather vs. Pacquiao fight ended in Las Vegas, Nevada with Floyd Mayweather beating Manny Pacquiao by unanimous decision.
For 12 rounds we saw why Mayweather is the greatest fighter of his generation. He's just too hard to hit. Pacquiao connected on less than 20% of his punches thrown and lost anywhere between eight and ten of the rounds.
Even when Pacquiao was connecting, he never stunned Mayweather and after each barrage Mayweather either shook his head and smirked or quickly scampered out of the way to end the attack.
At the end of the fight, it was clear to everyone at the MGM Grand Arena (except Manny Pacquiao) who the greatest fighter in the ring was.
But this was supposed to be the "Fight of the Century," it was supposed to be "the biggest fight in boxing history" and it cost $99.95 to buy it in high definition on pay-per-view.
This was supposed to be the best boxing had to offer in a last ditch effort to save the sport! Because Mayweather and Pacquiao delivered that dud that we witnessed on Saturday night with the stakes so high with the whole world watching, it's clear that there's no saving boxing. It's just dead.
I know that Floyd Mayweather wins all of his fights by avoiding the big shot and waiting for the judges to crown him the champion.
There was no surprise whatsoever with the manner in which he won, but that's boring. That's like watching a basketball team that shoots 90% from the free throw line draw fifty personal fouls in a game. Very effective, but painfully drab and uneventful.
With the sport on the line in the "Fight of the Century," I wanted big blows, drama, a fighter to hit the mat, even a fighter to attempt to chew the other's ear off! Just something that looked like, well, a fight.
Instead, I got thirty-six minutes of ducking, dodging and whiffing. Instead of being everything that older boxing fans remember about the greatness of the sport, it was everything that has turned people off of the sport. It was a fight so boring that in the eighth or ninth round (I can't remember which one) I found myself nodding off.
If in the so called "Fight of the Century" a viewer has to fight to stay awake in what is supposed to be the best that the sport can offer, then they may as well close the casket and throw dirt on it because that is not quality entertainment. Greatness by Mayweather? Sure. Riveting entertainment for the sports fan? Please.
Not even the legendary Oscar De La Hoya could defend his sport, tweeting out "sorry boxing fans" and "Call me old school but I like the fans getting their money's worth by watching an action packed fight" and "Im just not into the boxing, running style. I like jumping out of my seat because a fight was existing and the fans got their money's worth."
As far as the future of boxing is concerned, there's nothing to analyze because boxing is dead. Remember? When a relative or a friend dies, you don't start making plans for his or her future because he or she has no future as a corpse and there is nothing to look forward to in the boxing world.
The fight we all wanted just happened. Floyd Mayweather said he's fighting one more fight and then he's retiring. In that fight, he'll probably select another no-name opponent and win another boring 12-round fight by decision.
Even if he schedules a rematch against Pacquaio, there won't be nearly as many people stupid enough to pay $99.95 again to be bored. Injury excuses or not, Pacquiao had his shot at Mayweather and lost convincingly.
There's also nothing to look forward to because this fight was never engineered to save boxing, rejuvenate boxing and hype up other fighters. It was meant to make Floyd Mayweather (and Manny Pacquiao) a ton of money.
And here's your proof
There are exactly zero household names and zero exciting fighters to look forward to in the future. If this was about saving boxing, then the undercard fighters would have been promoted as the future of boxing. Instead, nobody knew who was fighting before Mayweather and Pacquaio or anything about them until the fights started just after nine o'clock.
If the "Fight of the Century" can't even properly promote any of the next generation of fighters or the next major fight, then there's little hope that Premier Boxing Champions, Golden Boy Promotions or anything else will.
There simply is no path forward in boxing because boxing is dead.
And while Floyd "Money" Mayweather may have impressed some boxing aficionados with his boring brilliance, what amazed me most is how he once again proved that he deserves the nickname "Money" 9,000 times more than he deserves the title greatest of all time (or even top ten all time.) What Floyd "Money" Mayweather accomplished on Saturday May 2, 2015, was one of the greatest robberies of all time. (No surprise considering he has a criminal record.)
We had hours and hours of actual ring footage for the world to see just how boring of a boxer he truly is and we were fully convinced that he was a boring boxer before fight started. Because of that, we knew (whether we wanted to believe it or not) that this fight would be a 12-round Mayweather victory by judge's decision. We knew that there was no reason to stretch the value of the pay-per-view event by watching the undercard fights because the undercard fights were not promoted at all and meant nothing to the vast majority of viewers.
We also knew that record prices of $1,500 for nose bleed seats in the arena, $10,000 for ring side seats, $50-60 to watch the fight at a bar and $99.95 to order the fight on pay-per-view was an astronomical sum of money to pay for a boring one-hour television program.
But mysteriously, millions of people across the globe (including me) were suckered into Mayweather's robbery scam anyway and forked over the hard earned money just so they could be bored for that fight. This wasn't an unexpected robbery by gunpoint in a dark alley at night.
It was as if Floyd Mayweather posted flyers all over the globe announcing that he'd be robbing people without a weapon in broad daylight at a particular place and time and millions of people arrived at the specified location at the specified time with gigantic wads of cash in their hands just so that they could be mugged without resistance by Floyd Mayweather.
How Mayweather (with his fifth grade caliber education) was smart enough to pull that off, I'll never know. All I know is that the world will not be tricked and robbed ever again unless the world gets tricked by a ghost. Because boxing is officially dead.
