Thursday, April 23, 2015

The fight of the decade (Maybe?)

Oh boy.....

The Floyd Mayweather/Manny Pacquiao fight is turning into a debacle. Tony Manfred, Yahoo.com

While the two camps agreed to the fight in February, they've yet to sign the contract, ESPN's Darren Rovell reports.
As a result, tickets to both the fight at the MGM Grand and the closed-circuit viewings at MGM properties around Las Vegas haven't been released for sale.
Ticket sales are expected to generate $72 million, but a week and a half before the fight, no one has a ticket. The two sides reportedly made progress on Tuesday, but the contract remains unsigned as of Wednesday morning.
Pacquiao's promoter, Top Rank, is blaming Mayweather Promotions, and vice versa. 

For all of the progress boxing has made in 2015, due in large part to the success of Al Haymon's Premier Boxing Championships and some other good fights, any time there is a Superfight (even one that's 5 years too late) coming up we're reminded just how little business sense the promoters in the game actually have.

Yes, they're good at making money in short bursts, but if you look at the boxing landscape over the past few years the only truly bankable fighters in the game are Mayweather and Pacquiao.  Everyone else near their weight has just been positioning themselves for the big payout by losing to these two. (OK, except Juan Manuel Marquez)

That said, I still think this fight is going to go off. It's ugly and it's starting to border on high comedy (with Arum and Haymon involved, how could it not?) but there's been too much push and too much publicity for this for either side to absorb.

Still, it's yet another black eye for boxing that's self induced. As a boxing fan it's getting hard to support a group that seemingly has no sense of self preservation.


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