By: Greg Houghton
This post is a message to all new boxing fans that found themselves interested in the Mayweather McGregor fight. You are no doubt here and reading this post due to your newfound interest in the sport of boxing through the recent McGregor spectacle. I would just like to say welcome to this wonderful sport that so many of us live and breathe on a daily and nightly basis. May boxing give you as many moments of total exuberance and utter despair as it’s served all of us boxing fans over the years.
I am not going to speculate on the ‘Money fight’ that came and went on Saturday as the fight itself didn’t do much for me. What did interest me hugely however was the marketing of this fight. If your brain works anything like mine then you too would have found yourself seeing tens of thousands of Irish fans taking over Las Vegas, thinking to yourself “how on earth did one man and one event cause this?”
The answer is that, fight aside, we had two marketing geniuses in one ring at the same time, who’s ability to sell a fight is beyond anything we have seen on this planet in recent times. Mayweather’s PPV history tells us everything we could ever know about his business and marketing skills, as he has repeatedly taken on the most powerful promotion companies in the business and won. McGregors marketing must be applauded also as he stands at the top of the MMA game. His performances in interviews and press conferences aside… the working class kid from Ireland who through hard work and the ‘law of attraction’, has embedded the practice of modern day spiritual teachers into his formula for success as a megastar in mixed martial arts. The guy, in every single way, is a promoters dream come true.
However, marketing is marketing and spirituality is spirituality. As we saw on Saturday, neither of these things can quite swing it for you when you’re fighting Floyd Mayweather in a boxing match. And, on another ‘however’, as a new boxing fan whose interest in the sport has come from Saturday’s event, there are some upcoming events in the boxing world that you must know about.
I must confess, during the Mayweather McGregor fight, I too found myself with an elevated heart rate, legs twitching and a feeling of overwhelming excitement and anticipation that I could not seem to control. This came not from the event, but from the realization that Canelo vs GGG will be on our screens in exactly three weeks from that moment.
Photo Credit: Sapir Caduri
I asked Golovkin this very question at the NYC presser on June 26th, and he was quick to shut it down by replying “Sparring is sparring, this is fight, is not the same”.
This fight is one that boxing fans have been waiting on for years, one with a very different marketing strategy to that which we’ve just seen, for nothing needs to be said from either party in order to sell this upcoming war. No soap opera press conferences, no playground styled trash talk and little to no correlation to the annual promotion of ‘Wrestlemania’. The only form of promotion required for this event is the occasional piece of leaked footage of either man in camp, which in turn, sends shivers through the body of the boxing fan.
You have no doubt heard the rumors spread by those who have contracted the virus commonly known as ‘boxing expert syndrome’, as to why “Canelo destroys Golovkin” or why “GGG is going to smash Canelo”. The reality is, as any boxing fan who has followed the professional careers of these two will tell you, there is absolutely no way of knowing who wins this fight.
Golovkin. The knockout artist and one of the most feared fighters of his generation, who on closer inspection won a points decision by a single round earlier this year against Danny Jacobs and did not hurt him in the process. You can’t help but wonder, at 35, has age finally caught up with GGG? Does he still posses the devastating power and pinpoint accuracy that demolished the likes of David Lemieux?
Photo Credit: Sapir Caduri
Canelo has looked nothing short of lethal in camp for this fight in sharpening his power punches. But remember, in May this year he threw all of this and the kitchen sink for all 12 rounds at Chavez Jr, who barely waved a finger back at him and took everything that Canelo could throw.
So we must wonder, does Canelo’s power really carry at 160 and above? And second to this, can he be quick enough on his feet to deal with the continual pressure and cutting off of the ring that GGG will no doubt bring?
Will the previous events in sparring between the two play any precedence in their phycology on fight night? It has been rumored for some time that GGG got the better of Canelo when they sparred a few years back. I asked Golovkin this very question at the NYC presser on June 26th, and he was quick to shut it down by replying, “Sparring is sparring, this is fight, is not the same”. As always, the Kazakh was humble in his broken English and reluctant to give anything away.
If you’ve only recently become interested in boxing, you are lucky to have gotten into it at this moment right now. What happens on Mexican independence day, September 16th will unlikely be anything other than an all out war, with the winner in contention as the pound for pound number 1 in the world. In fact, with Lomachenko vs Rigondeoux rumored to have been booked, Anthony Joshua on a mission to unify the heavyweight division and the super middleweight and Cruiserweight ‘Super Series’ immanent, there have been fewer better times to get in to boxing than right now. With almost every weight division within the sport having its own stars worthy of selling pay-per-view fights, boxing is currently on fire compared to the state of it in recent times.
Welcome aboard, new boxing fans. Please take your seat, buckle up and prepare for the inevitable turbulence that we’ll encounter on September 16th and beyond.
P.S. If you’re an MMA fan with a newly found passion for boxing, try not to take Oscar De-La-Hoya’s spiteful words to heart. He didn’t mean it; he’s just trying to sell his fight, that’s all.