Floyd Mayweather will still rake in millions on less-than-worthy final matchup
Floyd Mayweather, Jr. and Andre Berto face off during the press conference to announce their Sept. 12 fight.
(Photo: Jayne Kamin-Oncea, Paste BN Sports)
LOS ANGELES - Floyd Mayweather claims that his bout with Andre Berto at the MGM Grand on Sept. 12 will be the last of his career. No one much believes him.
He says it will be a feisty battle, a classic matchup, a show well worthy of the $75 or so that the public will be asked to part with for the privilege of watching it. That's also, in all likelihood, not true.
Finally, at the press conference Thursday that announced the impending event, came the biggest fallacy of all, that Berto is worthy of sharing the same ring as the pound-for pound champion. He's not - the 31-year-old from Winter Haven, Fla., is a former welterweight champion but has virtually no notable victories on his record and has lost three times in his last six fights.
BERTO: I'm as fast - maybe faster - than Mayweather
Maybe none of it matters. Boxing promotions have long used sleight-of-hand trickery to talk up the appeal of a fight that lacks some, and this one surely does.
And whatever the result, whether it is the one-sided Mayweather cruise that appears so certain that Sin City's bookies have priced him as a 40-to-1 favorite, or something moderately competitive, there is still much to be to said for watching a modern great in action.
Mayweather is certainly that, the best boxer of his era and in the discussion among some of the best all time, with the Berto contest offering the chance to boost his career record to 49-0.
However, his latest attempt to wring eye-popping amounts of cash from the pocketbooks of the sporting public is also a missed opportunity.
After making a reported $220 million from his May dud against Manny Pacquiao, which was dripping with hype and delivered mostly disappointment, there was some talk that the final installment of his six-event Showtime deal would take place on free-to-air network television, on CBS.
Such a scenario would have taken some flexibility on all sides, and the estimated $60 million Mayweather could make from the Berto fight would have had to be scaled back significantly.
Leonard Ellerbe, CEO of Mayweather Promotions, said that a network event would have needed a longer time window, but in reality, like everything with boxing's biggest star, it boiled down to money.
That is a situation that has continued until now for one simple reason: Mayweather knows he can get away with it. As much as people complain about the relative lack of action and excitement generated by his defensively-minded style, however much disgruntled purchasers vow to never be duped again, however obviously an opponent is outmatched going into a pay-per-view card, there are always enough consumers willing to slap down their credit card to give his bank balance another giant boost.
"I've been getting backlash, (Berto) has been getting backlash," Mayweather said. "No one is forced to buy the fight. I appreciate it, but no one is forced to buy it. But they always tune in. They say one thing but they do another."
That was about as forceful a phrase as Mayweather uttered in his hour or so with the media in a hotel ballroom in Downtown L.A. There was a time when he relished promotional commitments such as this, a chance to spout his own brand of rhetoric, belittle an opponent, drum up a spicy mock-feud or a controversial storyline.
Not so now. His voice was croaky, apparently the after-effects of a late night, his comments were tame.
Earlier, Showtime Sports boss Stephen Espinoza was lavishly praising Mayweather and trying to make everyone believe that this really is the end of his career, and that the fighter won't, as expected, open the MGM's lavish new indoor arena some time next year.
"Take a good look at him while you can," Espinoza said. "He won't be around much longer."
But, on this occasion, taking a look at Mayweather produced only one conclusion; that he was tired, perhaps from having to count all that money.