The insignia on Floyd Mayweather’s baseball cap reads TBE but whether or not he can enhance his claim to be The Best Ever boxer by beating Manny Pacquiao, he already holds the title of world’s greatest self-promoting athlete.
Not only will May 2 in Las Vegas be the most gigantic happening in the annals of human kind ? or something like that ? but even admission tickets for the official announcement which is about to take place are like gold-dust.
Floyd the Money Man versus Manny the PacMan will be formally launched with more fireworks than a NASA moon rocket this Wednesday.
Invitations to these media events are usually pressed on we hacks by PR men pleading with us to attend and fans are often allowed in to help fill the room.
This one is making a little history all its own by requiring that we apply for accreditation and such is the frenzy that we are warned ‘space is limited.’
Never mind the richest fight of all time, which was a sellout while still only a gleam in the eye of the promoters, but they could have sold tickets for this head-to-head sabre-rattling by the gladiators in Los Angeles.
Given the cost of flights from London, we thank them for not doing so.
Not so much as a twitch of a muscle or the flicker of a nerve is to be missed in these weeks in which all roads lead to the MGM Grand Garden Arena on that neon Strip in the desert.
For this, Mayweather can take most of the credit.
The five years in which he held to ransom the hundreds of millions around the world who have been begging him to face Pacquiao in the ring have generated a commercial monster of unprecedented enormity. +8
Mayweather was on the famous Strip as he took a break from training for his fight with Manny Pacquiao +8
Pacquiao shadow boxes in the ring as he prepares for the richest fight in history of boxing
Even before these reluctant grooms affirm their vows to each other in public for the first time, estimates as to the potential worth of this fight have soared from a lip-licking $200million to at least an eye-watering $350m and maybe a gob-smacking half a billion.
Whatever Mayweather’s reasons for stalling ? and he has been accused of everything from cowardice (outrageously) to an excessive obsession with his undefeated record (possibly) ? he has proved himself to be an economic genius.
Had he agreed to this shotgun wedding back in the year 2000 he and Pacquiao would have received half each of a total purse estimated at around $60m.
Now he is getting the 60 per cent upside of a deal which is expected to deliver $210m to him and $140m to his arch-rival.
The bulk of that money will come from pay-per-view television but claims that Showtime and HBO in America ? and either Sky or BoxNation here ? will be short-changed by fighters past their prime are being rebuffed by boxing men in the know.
Pacquiao’s seven-time Trainer of the Year in the US ? Freddie Roach ? tells us: ‘This will be a much better fight for TV and the fans than if it had happened when it was first discussed. +8
The Filipino legend had complained about ‘feeling slow’ but looked up to speed during his fifth day of training +8
The 36-year-old is completing his training regime at Freddie Roach’s Wild Card Gym in Los Angeles
‘Floyd could well have won back then by running and dodging behind that highly technical defence of his. But now that his legs have slowed a little Manny will have more chances of getting to him, making a real fight of it and beating him.
‘For me and Manny this will still be the biggest challenge of our careers. It will still be our most difficult fight. But it is one we can win.’
That opinion will gain legs of it own in LA this week, all the time continue to build an already massive market around the world.
Mayweather’s business acumen has already made him the wealthiest sportsman on the planet. After this there will be no catching him in the foreseeable future.
Even as he waits for the biggest pay cheque of all, he continues to enjoy the fruits of his punishing fistic labours.
Mr Money’s idea of a break from hard training in his hometown Vegas this weekend was a trip along the Strip for a little high-rolling in a casino.
Who can deny that’s he’s earned it?
And whatever anyone may think of him, there is no smarter operator in the whole wide world of sport.
