ShareSo concludes our marathon pre-fight coverage of Floyd Mayweather-Juan Manuel Marquez. Don’t forget to join us Saturday evening for a round-by-round live blog!
Links to everything you need for Saturday night’s big pay-per-view event are right here, from where and how to watch (down to the movie theaters that are incredibly carrying the fight) to Floyd Mayweather rapping.
I’ve written about the fight all week long, in great depth: Why Mayweather-Marquez Matters. Mayweather Has Weaknesses, But Exploiting Them Is A Whole ‘Nother Matter. Keys To The Fight. Previews And Predictions For The Stellar Undercard. Preview And Prediction For The Main Event. I also did a radio spot of some length with pal GG from Fight Game Blog.
For scheduling/ordering information, visit HBO.com (which will carry the weigh-in at 5:30 p.m. ET today, where the secret-for-no-reason 144-pound weight limit should come to light). It’s $49.95 on pay-per-view, but if you play ball with beer sponsor Tecate, you can basically get it for free. If you want to get the communal experience, there are 170 movie theaters around the country that will be charging $12.50 to $15 a ticket to watch the card in high-def and surround sound. This is a big deal — no fight has seen major movie theater distribution since Sugar Ray Leonard-Roberto Duran, the famous “No Mas” fight almost 30 years ago. You can find the list of theaters here. And if you want to go see the fight in Vegas, well, there are still tickets available, and closed circuit tickets an option, too.
There’s really no better way to get a sense of each fighter’s career than these short HBO highlight clips, even if there are a couple gaps of note like Marquez-Joel Casamayor or Mayweather-Henry Bruseles (j/k on the latter). Here are those clips.
You can also check out the complete records of
Mayweather and
Marquez, and if you want, watch their most recent fights one last time
Saturday morning on
HBO. And, of course, the 24/7 series gives insights into both the fighters as boxers and as human beings, the infamous) highlight of this season being the bizarre micturation-drinking
scene. The 24/7 series has always had its flaws, and as they repeatedly feature the same people there are diminishing returns, but it’s still pretty good television. Here’s
episode #1, with links to highlights of this installment of the series, but the whole set is playing all over the various
HBO channels between today and tomorrow. Quick summary of their personalities: Mayweather is basically a jackass who tries every now and then to play nice guy, sometimes actually achieving it, while Marquez is a proud, confident Mexican warrior. Marquez, too, has offered a
training diary via
ESPN which is better than the usual such training diaries.
I’m always interested in the mainstream media take.
ESPN’s “
Fight Credential” remains essential as hell. Amongst the biggest papers in the country,
The Wall Street Journal and
USA Today have offered some coverage of note, with USA Today actually going quite extensive. The New York Times continues to pretend that boxing doesn’t exist.
Gamblers: Marquez is the 4-1 underdog, and the line has him at 21-5 to win by knockout. Compubox, boxing’s stat-master, has provided its own cold, calculated analysis.
Businesswise, the Mayweather-Marquez fight has some interesting elements.
Maxboxing goes in-depth on new-school marketing techniques for Mayweather-Marquez. Golden Boy Promotions has combined with Mayweather to put on a rare quality undercard, and they explain why
here. I’m sure there are people who will
read a lot into how Mayweather-Marquez fares against UFC 103, on the same night.
The New York Daily News examines Mayweather’s bid to become a proven pay-per-view star. (My guess on PPV numbers: about 700,000. Golden Boy is predicting as many as 1 million, but I don’t see it doing better than Manny Pacquiao-Ricky Hatton’s 850,000, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Mayweather-Marquez was more in the 500,000 ballpark.) Everyone’s purse for the fight except Mayweather’s is available
here; Mayweather’s purse is getting a $5 million deduction from the IRS and won’t be known until some time today.
Whoever wins Saturday, they really ought to fight the winner of the Nov. 14 Pacquiao-Miguel Cotto bout. Pacquiao’s promoter says they’re willing to play ball if Mayweather wins, and Marquez’ promoter wants Pacquiao, too.
In other news, Mayweather is
not the worst rapper in the world, but he’s not very good, either. Curse words and thonged-assshakings await you if you click on this NSFW video.
Share
