The long weekend is here, but the biggest worldwide sporting event of your mini-break is scheduled to go ahead a few hours before our regular round-up of the week’s best sportswriting.
So, to pay proper dues to some hard-working scribes covering the fight without holding their work up to post-fight ridicule, here’s a collection of some of the finest work leading up to the big night in the MGM Grand. It’s Mayweather. It’s Pacquiao and it’s scheduled to go seven articles.
LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLET’S GET READY TO RUMBLLLLLLLLLLLLE!!!
1. “It’s with some guilt that I have to confess to being underwhelmed by this glitzy gala for a sport I love, centrepieced as it is by an event that features certainly one, and, possibly, two of the greatest boxers of all time… As a sporting contest it’s at least five years past its sell by date. We even know the result – a Mayweather win on points or by a late stoppage.”
AP / Press Association Images
AP / Press Association Images / Press Association Images
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2.“The broadcast group has been housed in the usual press center, but many of them do their stand-up reports outside, after practice preening and makeup.
The ink-stained wretches, the usual occupants of the press center, are now housed in a giant tent in a parking lot. It is downwind.”
3.“What if George Foreman knocked Ali out in the eighth round of the “Rumble In The Jungle” instead of the opposite? Most likely George, not Ali, would be considered the greatest heavyweight of all-time.”
4.“The owner of a bar in south-eastern Pennsylvania, who asked for “anonymity and vagueness of his location” so he could talk, says he is closing down the bar on Saturday night rather than spend the money to order the fight. Obviously that’s not his real plan: “We’re going to have our regulars in and we’re all going to watch the fight.” The owner had not even bothered to check with G&G to see what it would cost, as “he knew he couldn’t afford it.”
5.“He is always balanced, as comfortable and controlled in a clinch or the corner as in the center of the ring….
“Outside, he allegedly picked up and shook a female security guard; police issued him a citation. The security guards at the casino encouraged the women not to press charges and thus risk “paying for it in the streets.”
6.“This weekend’s spectacle is Al Haymon resuscitating boxing for one last shot at glory. This is Floyd Mayweather turning in the lottery ticket he inherited from Jack Johnson, Joe Louis, Sugar Ray Robinson and Ali. This is nostalgia and celebration and, ultimately, the funeral for a sport that derived nearly all of its cultural relevance from barbarically arguing America’s black-white racial dilemma.”
7.“The Phillippine government says he owes tens of millions in back taxes. And should you try to take comfort in thinking that perhaps Pacquiao at least respects women more than Mayweather does, remember that he fought against legislation in the Philippines that would mandate sex education, subsidize contraception, and expand family-planning offerings.”
PPV cops, Good v Evil and legacy costs: Here's the best of the Mayweather v Pacquiao sportswriting
The long weekend is here, but the biggest worldwide sporting event of your mini-break is scheduled to go ahead a few hours before our regular round-up of the week’s best sportswriting.
So, to pay proper dues to some hard-working scribes covering the fight without holding their work up to post-fight ridicule, here’s a collection of some of the finest work leading up to the big night in the MGM Grand. It’s Mayweather. It’s Pacquiao and it’s scheduled to go seven articles.
LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLET’S GET READY TO RUMBLLLLLLLLLLLLE!!!
1. “It’s with some guilt that I have to confess to being underwhelmed by this glitzy gala for a sport I love, centrepieced as it is by an event that features certainly one, and, possibly, two of the greatest boxers of all time… As a sporting contest it’s at least five years past its sell by date. We even know the result – a Mayweather win on points or by a late stoppage.”
Irvine Welsh has tried and failed to get excited about the ‘fight of the century’ in his column for Paddy Power.
2. “The broadcast group has been housed in the usual press center, but many of them do their stand-up reports outside, after practice preening and makeup.
The ink-stained wretches, the usual occupants of the press center, are now housed in a giant tent in a parking lot. It is downwind.”
Spare a thought for the LA Times’ Bill Dwyre. He’s been in Vegas all week with no news to report and broadcast journalists in his preferred workspace.
3. “What if George Foreman knocked Ali out in the eighth round of the “Rumble In The Jungle” instead of the opposite? Most likely George, not Ali, would be considered the greatest heavyweight of all-time.”
Frank Lotierzo of TheSweetScience.com ponders what defeat would mean for the Mayweather legacy.
4. “The owner of a bar in south-eastern Pennsylvania, who asked for “anonymity and vagueness of his location” so he could talk, says he is closing down the bar on Saturday night rather than spend the money to order the fight. Obviously that’s not his real plan: “We’re going to have our regulars in and we’re all going to watch the fight.” The owner had not even bothered to check with G&G to see what it would cost, as “he knew he couldn’t afford it.”
As promoters aim to cash in on pay-per-view sales, Dan McQuade reports that ‘PPV cops’ will be sent out to make sure nobody is watching illegally.
5. “He is always balanced, as comfortable and controlled in a clinch or the corner as in the center of the ring….
“Outside, he allegedly picked up and shook a female security guard; police issued him a citation. The security guards at the casino encouraged the women not to press charges and thus risk “paying for it in the streets.”
Grantland.com’s Louisa Thomas attempts to separate the ‘boxer’ from the ‘batterer’ in Floyd Mayweather Jnr.
6. “This weekend’s spectacle is Al Haymon resuscitating boxing for one last shot at glory. This is Floyd Mayweather turning in the lottery ticket he inherited from Jack Johnson, Joe Louis, Sugar Ray Robinson and Ali. This is nostalgia and celebration and, ultimately, the funeral for a sport that derived nearly all of its cultural relevance from barbarically arguing America’s black-white racial dilemma.”
TheUndefeated.com‘s Brando Simeo Starkey charts the demise of boxing alongside the rise of black America.
7. “The Phillippine government says he owes tens of millions in back taxes. And should you try to take comfort in thinking that perhaps Pacquiao at least respects women more than Mayweather does, remember that he fought against legislation in the Philippines that would mandate sex education, subsidize contraception, and expand family-planning offerings.”
Diana Moskovitz rubishes the idea that Mayweather-Pacquiao can be boiled down to a simple matter of Good v Evil, for Deadspin.com
Here’s how Pacquiao will set about causing an upset against Mayweather
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