November 29, 2007

For The Love of Sport: The Sweet Science : Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Ricky Hatton will attempt to knock a little bit of the tarnish off of boxing’s image on December 8, 2007 when they clash for the WBC welterweight title in Las Vegas.

Boxing was at one time quite possibly the most popular sport in this country. Baseball, horse racing and boxing vied for scarce entertainment dollars and as often as not boxing won. Everyone knew who Jack Dempsey was. Its stars were celebrities, legends if you will and fans knew where their champions ate and who they dated. Boxing champions were treated the way that we would treat an A-Rod today. Over the last half century boxing has slowly sold its prestige and respectability for pay per view profit. It has lost the masses and to an extent its respected place in the pantheon of sport. It is a fractured sport that has fallen from the elite realm of the NFL and the NBA to something more on par with UFC and the WWE. “Pretty Boy” Floyd Mayweather Jr. (38-0, 24 KO’s) and Ricky “The Hitman” Hatton (43-0, 31 KO’s) will attempt to knock a little bit of the tarnish off of boxing’s image on December 8, 2007 when they clash for the WBC welterweight title from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. Maybe a small part of Boxing’s tarnished image has to do with the occasional Mike Tyson who comes a long and gives the sport another metaphorical black eye. Maybe it’s the shameless promoters who sell any match-up between some two bit has-been and some never will be as the greatest fight since the “Thrilla in Manilla.” Maybe it’s the fact that the sport has four governing bodies and it is virtually impossible to tell who is who in the sport. If you think I am kidding, quick name a current heavyweight champion, it should be easy there are at least four. Boxing has gone 17 years since Mike Tyson was the last universally recognized champion in the Heavyweight division. It is a sport that to some extent has lost its direction. There are still, however, more than a few diamonds scattered throughout boxing’s rough landscape and this fight will have two of those diamonds on display. "Ricky Hatton cannot fight. He throws one punch at a time and then holds. Hatton is the most overrated fighter of the last 25 years."-Floyd Mayweather Jr. Ricky “The Hitman” Hatton, MBE (member of the order of the British Empire, the first step on the road to knighthood, I kid you not) is ranked by Ring Magazine as the 8th best pound-for-pound fighter in the world. For a fighter that is 43-0 Hatton is somewhat lightly regarded. Mayweather is slightly favored to win the match on Vegasinsider.com. However, a short search around their website also led me to discover that the odds makers do not even consider Hatton to be among the top five current welterweights (Mayweather, Miguel Cotto, Shane Mosley, Paul Williams and Antonio Margarito in that order). While 43-0 has to be impressive in any sport I get the distinct impression that boxing experts look at Hatton’s record the way that people look at the University of Hawaii’s record. At 29 years old Hatton has plenty of wins and numerous titles to his credit. What he doesn’t have and what he clearly seems to want is a lasting legacy. Hatton’s notable wins include Kostya Tszyu, an Australian who was heavily favored to beat Hatton, and an over the hill Vincent Phillips. Truth be told, neither of whom I had ever heard of until researching this article. I may be just a casual boxing fan but at least I have heard of Mayweather’s opponents. "There was more action in the four rounds of this fight than Floyd showed in his entire career," Hatton said. “Pretty Boy” Floyd Mayweather Jr. has been rated the best pound-for-pound boxer in the world for the last two years. He has won six titles in five weight classes and his last loss was as an amateur in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics were he ultimately took home a bronze medal. Mayweather has notable victories over Arturo Gatti, Zab Judah, Carlos Baldomir, and Oscar De La Hoya. Mayweather’s last fight was a PPV gold mine against De La Hoya were Mayweather won a split decision to take the WBC Super Welterweight title which he later vacated. De La Hoya raked in a reported record $58 million for that fight and Mayweather grossed $35 million. The more that I hear about Mayweather the more that I am reminded of Rocky III were Rocky gets all fat and happy and Mister T cleans his clock. $35 million for your last fight, appearance on dancing with the stars, vacillating on retirement you get the idea. Mayweather will turn 31 in February so he may be past his prime but I wouldn’t exactly say that he is to far down the backside of the mountain. It is an interesting match-up any way you look at it because both fighters are legitimate title-holders and undefeated over lengthy careers. Is Mayweather to far past his prime? Is Hatton a pretender whose career has been carefully orchestrated to avoid fights like this? Only time will tell, and only the very limited number of people willing to shell out the money for an HBO pay per view title fight will see it live. Whatever you may think about the fight or boxing in general, I just may drop the $50 to watch the fight on Pay Per View and someone is going to pay the advertised price of $9,273 for fifth row center ringside seats at the MGM Grand Garden Arena. I guess boxing is still grabbing some of those entertainment dollars after all. Quotes from Hatton and Mayweather taken from ESPN.com, additional background information from Wikipedia.org and Vegasinsider.com. As always I can be reached via email for questions, comments and column suggestions at kyrilmitch_76@yahoo.com and I can be found on the web at http://kyrilmitch.googlepages.com/home.

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