Other sports watched with interest at how today’s tools were used for a fight with narrative, hype, personalities and jeopardySome food for thought. Last week, the Guardian’s report on the “special exhibition” between the Hall of Fame boxer Floyd Mayweather and the celebrity YouTuber Logan Paul, was the second most-read story on our entire website. Millions read it, shared it, devoured it. A million Americans also paid $49.99 to watch on pay-per-view. Beforehand Mayweather had described it as “legalised bank robbery”. And it was. Yet people still willingly stuck their hands in the air and handed over their cash. Related: Logan Paul v Floyd Mayweather ends in boos as each fighter makes millions Continue reading...
Exhibition between YouTuber and 44-year-old is a destructive, easy source of revenue – and a troubling prospect for the sportThe phrase “(Person X) has a punchable face” is a horrible thing. There is so much wrong with it. The idea people have any say in what their face looks like. The suggestion punching is an acceptable human response. It’s degrading. It’s cowardly. It stinks of all the worst parts of the internet, humankind’s angriest medium.And yet, with all due advisories, and having considered soberly all available evidence, it has to be said Logan Paul really does have a punchable face. Related: Buddy McGirt: ‘A lot of Derek Chisora’s fights have been real wars but I can look after him’ |...
The American boxing legend conquered his profession and piled up more money than he’ll ever be able to spend, but a sense of purpose in retirement has proven far more elusiveAll told it could have been worse for Floyd Mayweather.On Wednesday, the five-division boxing champion backed out of a planned New Year’s Eve fight with the Japanese kickboxing star Tenshin Nasukawa less than three days after he appeared at a downtown Tokyo press conference announcing the bout, claiming he was “blindsided” by the promoter regarding the magnitude of the event. Continue reading...
Five-weight former world champion has agreed to take on a 20-year-old Japanese kickboxer in what is the latest of the bored American’s money-making stuntsEvaluating the absurd in boxing is like trying to break open a coconut with a feather: intriguing but pointless – yet Floyd Mayweather manages to take us to that place time and again.After coming out of retirement to entertain and hugely enrich Conor McGregor (and himself) with gloves in August 2017, the 41-year-old enigma says he has agreed to swap blows of a variety yet to be determined in Japan on New Year’s Eve with Tenshin Nasukawa, an acclaimed kickboxer who is 5ft 4in, 8st 6lb and 21 years younger than a hall-of-fame boxer who won world...
There was little to be learned after a predictable outcome to this money-spinning contest in Las Vegas between two proponents of very different disciplinesA bar is, on reflection, the best place to watch a bar fight. Ultimately, for Conor McGregor, there was time for neither much thinking nor a lot of what the Irishman would regard as proper fighting. He roughly doubled his Warholian 15 minutes of fame and considerably enhanced his wealth, while retaining a good deal of dignity in defeat.Yet, from our noisy spot in front of a screen in the Lansdowne Road Bar (where else?) in New York City on Saturday night, it was clear that what mental and physical space Floyd Mayweather allowed the mixed martial...