BOXING FANS are once again having their deep pockets and short memories targeted as Mike Tyson and Floyd Mayweather agree to fight each other.
With a combined age of 107, a couple of grandkids and career earnings closing in on £1.5billion between them, 48-year-old Money Mayweather and Iron Mike, 59, are looking to cash in on the sport’s rich vein of nostalgia.
ReutersMike Tyson has suffered personal loss, mental health, addiction and health problems[/caption]
ReutersFloyd Mayweather is one of the finest fighters of the modern era and a genius businessman[/caption]
The two men who will hobble down to the ring – on an unconfirmed date, in an unconfirmed country or state – deserve every pound, dollar or Saudi Arabia Riyal that the CSI/Fight Sports organisers are promising them.
After very different but similarly brutal childhoods – over a decade and 800 miles apart – these two men rose from poverty and abuse to unimaginable riches.
So it feels a bit cheap that they are now fronting a ploy to trick, rather than treat, fight fans to a trip down memory lane.
Mayweather was simply magnificent when he toyed with young bull Canelo Alvarez in 2013 and every belt and million the Mexican has banked since has made that unanimous win look even more impressive.
But Pretty Boy Floyd’s last stoppage victory came back in 2007 against our own working class hero Ricky Hatton.
Tyson’s last semi-impressive win was probably Frans Botha in 1999, and he behaved like a maniac for most of that.
The Baddest Grandad on the Planet was – completely understandably – a ghost of his former greatness in the 2020 farce with fellow icon Roy Jones Jr.
The boardroom brains branded the 8x2min rounds with sparring gloves ‘Lockdown Knockdown’ when better titles would have been The Entertainment Vaccination or the WHO Cares Title.
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Worst was to follow last year when YouTube upstart Jake Paul dragged Tyson off a hospital bed, following a ruptured ulcer, for another big-money freak show.
At the weigh-in, Paul shouted “he must die!” and made a throat cutting gesture.
That laughing stock went the distance as well with barely a meaningful punch being thrown, let alone landing.
When these MisFits influencer shows first emerged, the shysters in charged tried and failed to lure the traditional boxing fans with the lie that this format would help entice a new generation to the increasingly niche noble art.
That was a myth that unraveled rapidly as more pornographic actors, controversial pranksters and failed MMA fighters sparked ugly scenes out of the ring and dull or unfair events inside the ropes.
In short, let’s wish the pair of grandfathers another little pension top-up.
They paid their dues, took their licks and lumps and – especially in the case of Tyson who lost a four-year-old daughter in 2009 – had their personal lives played out in front of the world.
But the moment some berk with a mic, or dope with a channel, tries to tell you that you should part with your hard-earned money for this fistic feast, offer to fight them instead – for free
Like sadly so many of these celebrity fighting events – because they are not boxing bouts – let’s hope the people in danger get home safe, fans realise there are better things to spend their money on, and shameless promoters and broadcasters up their game after the latest stinker.
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