Blake Murphy Sports Writing

Title: A Look at Mayweather vs de la Hoya
Date: May 4, 2007
Original Source: The On Deck Circle
Synopsis: Five years later, Mayweather is still looking for his next “last big fight,” but at the time I thought this might be it.

For all the hype behind it, months of buildup, a reality television series following the fighters, a plethora of mainstream media attention, and two of the most charismatic fighters ever, Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Oscar De La Hoya cannot disappoint on Saturday, May 5. I don’t mean to say that the fight can’t be a stinker, it could be. At the same time, though, the buildup is much too large for anyone to walk away from the fight disappointed. At the end of the night, there will be a winner and a loser, there will be love and hate, and there will be a sigh from the collective boxing world. They will sigh as one man’s hand is raised, because the 10-count that preceded it will have counted down boxing’s last 10 seconds of glory.

This really will be the last great ring war. If you look at the boxing landscape, it is in shambles. Floyd Mayweather is the last marketable bad guy, Oscar the last marketable hero. Boxing has long been hurt by the disorganization that comes from being a widely international sport with five different titles at each of 17 weight classes. When you figure in multiple title holding champions, you’re still left with 67 different title holders in boxing. Compare this to just 29-32 teams in every major team sport and only four UFC champions. With sports entertainment dollars being highly competed for, boxing loses a lot of points with casual fans due to the complexity of being a boxing fan; not only is boxing much more enjoyable if you learn the sport and the psychology and strategy, but it is also nearly impossible to be a casual fan because of the large amount of knowledge necessary to have even a remotely intelligent conversation about it. They also have very few recognizable faces left (Mayweather, De La Hoya, Jermaine Taylor, “the big hairy Russian heavyweight,” Bernard Hopkins, Winky Wright…most of who only fight occasionally).

With Mayweather and De La Hoya both hinting at retirement after this fight, boxing could be left in a state where it has no characters left. The promotional machine has been slowed in the last five years or so as the personable heavyweights all retired (for some reason lighter classes have trouble selling), and as Don King has taken on a less public role (hate him or not, he is the human hype machine). This fight has been built up superbly. They had an 11 city press conference tour where Pretty Boy and Golden Boy trash talked to no end, the reality series captivated non-traditional audiences, and ESPN has provided more coverage for this fight than they have for all fights, cumulative, over the past three years. While some see this as a good sign for boxing, it’s really a bad sign. Everyone is excited for this fight because of the two people involved, a clash of personalities and values, and because a lot of people realize this may be boxing’s last hurrah. Nobody would watch a reality show about Junior Witter and Ricardo Torres because, well, who are they? It could be a great fight and a great clash, but there is no established relationship with the public to base the hype on.So, like I said, this fight can’t disappoint. Non-boxing fans have been too enthralled with the buildup to really care about the outcome of the fight. Casual boxing fans (like myself) are just happy to be interested in boxing again (or for once). And the diehard boxing fans will be content to see an important matchup that people care about for once. For what it’s worth, boxing pundits will probably criticize the fight for being boring, as Floyd is notorious for his Philly Defense style of fighting that appears boring and lazy to those who don’t know strategy. Floyd fights to win, not to impress the crowd, and his defensive style can make for some boring stretches. At the same time, it’s a thing of beauty to watch over the course of 12 rounds if you pay attention and appreciate boxing.

As for the buildup itself, it’s been unbelievable, as I mentioned. I have a big time beef with HBO though. The 24/7 series has been fantastic. The show is a series of four 1-hour long episodes detailing each fighter’s preparation for the fight over the month leading up to it. They aired on three consecutive Sundays, and then last night was the final installment. The first two episodes I watched on YouTube, but am furious to find that HBO has since ordered a cease and desist on all 24/7 episodes on online video sharing sites. HBO-produced short promotional pieces, however, have been plastered everywhere. It seems HBO just doesn’t want the good stuff being shared. This move makes very little sense to me. HBO does not reach a large number of homes since it’s a pay channel, so the internet was a viable option for spreading awareness (a good idea for HBO since the fight is on HBO pay per view). Furthermore, the videos were getting an insane number of hits on sites like YouTube and Daily Motion, meaning the episodes were actually getting people excited for (and talking about) the fight, something boxing hasn’t been able to do in a long time. So HBO effectively shut down a big part of its promotion, angering a notoriously intense and opinionated market segment (not to mention the one associated with diehards willing to shell out that flippy dipp for pay per views). I would understand this with their regular original programming like Entourage or The Sopranos. But the difference with this is that the internet is harmless in this case. The videos essentially have an expiry date of May 5, and HBO is running very few repeats of the episodes because of the tight time span they occur within. I think three weeks of internet pirating (aka free advertising to a large target segment) would have been alright in the grand scheme of things.

To be fair though, HBO doesn’t need to worry about it. The live gate has already surpassed all known live attendance revenue records, and the fight has already garnered over one million buys, an astonishing number for a few days before a pay per view event. The 16,000 seat MGM Grand Arena has been sold out along with 16,000 closed-circuit viewing seats across Vegas. Pay per view buys have record setting potential. The whole world will be watching. Oh yeah, there’s a boxing match to talk about. For all the hype and trash talk, there comes a point in every boxing match where a fight has to start.

Floyd Mayweather is the best pound for pound boxer in the world. He is undefeated. He is in his physical prime. Oscar is a great fighter, has a slight size advantage, and in his prime was one of the best fighters on the planet. However, Oscar’s style and history of gassing in the double digit rounds plays right into Floyd’s defensive “wait and strike” approach to fighting. I don’t know boxing crazy well, but I do know in any fight I’ll take a guy like Floyd…everyone knows I’m down with over the top bad-guy kind of characters, especially in individual sports. Floyd’s my main man, but bias aside I think we’ll see Floyd dominate the fight. I’m going to cop out with a dual prediction and say that I think it will go the distance with Floyd winning nine of the 12 rounds, but IF there is a knockout, it will be Floyd KO’ing Oscar in the 9th.

So what’s the point of all this? There isn’t one, really. I just wanted to be a part of the last great boxing matchup. Saturday night while I drink my ass off for my 21st birthday, I’ll be cheering for Pretty Boy Floyd, because that’s how I roll. I’ll try and download the fight afterwards (an impending impossibility), and probably watch it alone. I won’t shed a tear for boxing or for Oscar going out on his back. Instead I’ll turn my attention back to the sports that are still alive and thriving, throwing in the occasional boxing movie to whet my appetite for the sport, and hope that eventually boxing finds its way back into the mainstream on a more permanent basis than Floyd/Oscar has afforded it this past month.