On Saturday night, every single person in America (give or take) tuned in to watch the most boring boxing match of all time. It was a contest between Floyd Mayweather, the undefeated woman-beating champion whose in-ring conservatism turns boxing into a numbers game, and Manny Pacquiao, erstwhile cockfighting enthusiast and the most underdogginest underdog ever to throw a punch. More than that, it was in many ways mainstream America’s reintroduction to boxing. It was an Event, the Fight of the Century, bigger than the Super Bowl crossed with the World Cup crossed with a presidential election held on the moon. Unless Muhammed Ali had parachuted down from the ceiling of the MGM Grand Garden Arena and started wailing on Mayweather in some sort of WWE-esque surprise appearance, there was no way it was going to live up to the hype.
In the end, Mayweather’s boxing-as-a-round-of-golf strategy took the day, and while efficient, made for one of the most underwhelming events in the recent history of performative punching. In three weeks, following a few last flurries of follow-ups on follow-ups on follow-ups, the news cycle will right itself and boxing will return to the cultural footnote that it usually is.
The way to make people care about something they don’t care about is to create a sense of mystery, a sense of urgency, an arch fear of missing out on something that feels like a cultural event. This is how we engaged in a national debate about the color of some goddamn dress, tuned into the Bruce Jenner interview, and why every four years suddenly decide we all care about soccer. With Mayweather-Pacquiao, we had plenty of narrative, which led to legions of armchair analysts spontaneously generating opinions about boxing, feeling about as natural as the growth of a third arm.
