Floyd Mayweather Junior will fight Emmanuel ?Manny? Dapidran Pacquiao in Las Vegas Nevada next month for a share of several hundred million US dollars and the right to be known as the pound-for-pound greatest boxer since the turn of the millennium.
But if you?re a fan of millionaires beating the snot out of each other then you already knew all that, and you?re probably already on the phone to your Pay-Per-View provider. So my job is to convince the rest of you to watch two grown men in fancy shorts punch each other in the face for an amount of money that is frankly offensive to anyone even vaguely impoverished. But that?s not as hard as you might think, because no matter what you?re into there?s something in this fight for you.
If you?re into sport
This is easy. It is actually pretty rare that any sport is blessed with two athletes that transcend the competition at the same time. Rarer still that those two god-like entities get to find out who is best in a one-on-one contest. This could never happen in a team sport. You can argue until you?re blue in the face about Magic John vs. Larry Bird, but the fact is they never played a televised game mano e mano. So we?ll never really know. Even in individual sports its problematic. James Hunt vs. Niki Lauda? There were always other drivers, different cars. They were never able to compete alone, without any distractions. Next month, two of the most dominant champions in the history of sports will find out who gets to stand alone, having finally vanquished all before him.
If you?ve ever seen Rocky
The fantastic thing about Mayweather and Pacquiao is that in their own ways they were both Rocky Balboa and are now both Apollo Creed. Mayweather grew up in a family of boxing contenders in Grand Rapids, Michigan. His mother struggled with drug addiction and his father only saw Floyd when he was taking him to the gym to train. Pacquiao was born in a tiny village in the Philippines. His parents separated when he was 6 because his father was living with another woman. At 14 Manny moved to Manilla and lived on the streets before joining the national amateur boxing team, on which he reportedly had a record of 64 fights, 60 wins.
That was all a little while ago now. Mayweather made $US105 million in 2014. His mouthguards cost $US25,000 and contain real $100 bills. His nickname is ?Money?. Pacquiao isn?t quite in Mayweather?s league, but he?s doing ok. North of $US40 million last year, $US12.5 million of which he spent on a house in Beverly Hills that used to belong to Sean ?P-Diddy? Combs.
Given all that you might think that Manny fits better into the hoodie of the underdog, and you?d be right, but that hasn?t stopped Floyd busting out some pretty Balboa-approved training methods. Chopping wood comes to mind. On the other side Manny has been doing a lot of his training in parks while crowds chant his name, and apparently can?t run hills like he used to because of chromic shin splints. An aging athlete that?s falling apart at the seams but wants to give it one last go? Classic Rocky.
If you like viral marketing that is tangentially related to sport
Some say the best thing about the Super Bowl is the ads. Those freedom-hating bastards are wrong, but nonetheless we can all agree that American advertising is pretty much the business. Mad Men has not been running all this time for no reason. Manny appeared in one of the most adorable Footlocker ads of all time, in the days when fighting Floyd was but a twinkle in a promoter?s eye. Look at that little guy, all fired up. So cute. For his part Floyd did once appear in a ?This is SportCenter? ad that was chuckle-worthy. If you haven?t been sold by all the sporty-Stalloney stuff, chances are you?re not going shell out for the Pay-Per-View all on your own, but given this fight is going to be watched by most of the western world it?s likely that you know someone who?s going to buy it. If this is enough to push you off the fence and make you chip in your ten bucks then my job is done.
If you?re a fan of tiny Pilipino men signing the soundtrack from Frozen
This man is on the verge of becoming the most dominant boxer of the last 20 years. That clip was in response to this ESPN sketch from the 2014 ESPY awards featuring Drake. So it turns out there is at least one thing that Manny can?t do better than almost everyone on the planet, but he doesn?t know that yet.
If you like Justin Bieber
I?m hesitant to include this, because I genuinely believe that a large contingent of Beliebers tuning in to this fight might actually make the experience less enjoyable for the rest of us somehow, but Justin Bieber is a committed member of Floyd Mayweather?s entourage and will be walking to the ring with his 38 year old friend. But I guess there is an outside chance that if Mayweather loses the broadcast might feature footage of Bieber crying or pissing in a bucket or however else he expresses his emotions, and there exists an even smaller chance that if Floyd wins that the pair will re-enact the post-fight ?Adrian!?Rocky?? scene from Rocky. Whether or not all that represents a net loss or gain is a pretty personal judgement.
If you?re not a fan of sport, or one of the greatest movies of all time, or great ads, or Frozen ? themed sketch comedy and internet come-back videos, or little men who just want to sing their worries away, then it?s likely you won?t watch Mayweather ? Pacquiao on May 2. But you?ll probably be missing out on one of the greatest sporting spectacles of all time and possibly the TV event of the year.
