Looking at Tenshin Nasukawa flop around the ring at Saitama Prefecture Super Arena in Saitama, Japan on New Year?s Eve, apparently buzzed and scrambled by glancing arm punches from Floyd Mayweather, the word ?fix? had to be floating through many minds.
The three-round, nine-minute fight?which became a one-round, three-knockdown blowout corner stoppage loss for the young Japanese kickboxing star?was billed, after all, as an exhibition and Mayweather, himself, never hid the fact that this matchup would be purely for entertainment purposes.
And, really, there?s no harm, no foul even if it was a fixed affair. No governing body had sanctioned the bout and it was not counted as a ?real? fight on either fighter?s record. Mayweather?s payday?which ranged from Japanese media reports of $88 to Mayweather?s own (more realistic) boast of $9 million?may be obscene when stacked up against the earning power of real world heroes like firefighters and teachers, but there?s nothing wrong with a man picking up a payday gifted to him.
The thing about labeling it a fix is this, though?In a real fixed fight both sides stand to gain something from the fix. Usually, one side of a fix gets some money and/or promises of future fights while the other side gets a marquee win that propels his career in some way.
In the specific case of Mayweather vs. Nasukawa, Mayweather?s take was a huge chunk of change for a small amount of work. But what, exactly, did the 20-year-old ?Ninja Boy? or his promoter, Rizin Fighting Federation, get from a fight being fixed in the manner it supposedly was?
Nasukawa looked utterly inept and failed to deliver one single positive, marketable moment from the 2 minute, 20 second contest. If the fight was fixed, the Japanese kid came off as a horribly inept patsy. If the fight was legit, he came off as a horribly inept fighter, knocked loopy by a 41-year-old retired boxer who wasn?t even really trying. The kid openly weeping in his corner after the fight leads one to believe that he felt the pain of defeat in a bout that, by all statements he made to media before the event, he certainly seemed to be taking seriously.
Rizin stood to get a boost to Japanese PPV sales for this Mayweather exhibition, but it still made no sense to bury one of their top young attractions in the pursuit of a few extra buys this one time. And, with the event being blocked in North America, there were no buys to be had from Mayweather?s most loyal followers (or dedicated haters).
So, maybe Mayweather will be back on another Rizin card in an even bigger exhibition? THIS time it?ll be for real, but (wink, wink?nudge, nudge) it?ll really be less real than the Nasukawa walkover? Maybe, possibly.
In the wake of the ?big? exhibition, there?s been a rush from the boxing media intelligentsia to post pious articles about just how much they didn?t care, about how this farce was beneath them and beneath the dignity of the sport. But the attention they?ve devoted to, literally, a nothing fight (not to mention the millions of views Mayweather-Nasukawa replays and recaps have garnered in the hours since the fight) is the real takeaway from the goings on in Saitama.
Fixed fight or not, the Mayweather name still resonates. People care about what he does?even if that ?caring? takes the form of dismissive ?I?m above it all? posturing. And when you can get people to care, you can get people to pay.
Boxing needs more fighters who can make people care about what they do.
