Don’t follow boxing very often, but you want to know the gist of Saturday’s mega-fight between Floyd Mayweather and Shane Mosley? Follow boxing all the time, and want one place that rounds up all the links about the welterweight showdown you could ever want? This Ultimate Guide to the May 1 pay-per-view bout is for you, no matter what kind you are.
As The Queensberry Rules has been covering the fight all week long, we’d be remiss not to point you to any of the six blog entries we’ve written this week. We analyzed the meaning of Mayweather-Mosley; considered what could be the most pivotal weapon Mosley brings to the fight; examined how Mayweather and Mosley stack up against one another, both in the physical and more mental departments; broke down the gambler’s angle on the fight; and provided our final preview and prediction.
If you’re looking for a shortcut with highlights of each man’s career, HBO’s succinct videos are the easiest way, and they’d get you pumped for the fight too. One flaw — they left out any mention of Mosley’s losses, but so be it. For a complete tally of each fighter’s records and biographical data, BoxRec gives them to you here and here. For a longer-form look at each man, particularly his personality, you can catch the glossy award-winning informercial that is HBO’s 24/7 series (plus each man’s most recent fight, in full) here, with the final 24/7 episode to air on HBO Friday night and reruns of every episode on the various HBO channels airing all weekend long.
So let’s say you wanna watch the fight. Contacting your cable or satellite provider is one way, and it’ll cost you $55 or if you’re a high-definition person, $65. If you do it that way, don’t forget about the Tecate rebate of up to $30 with a purchase of that surprisingly not-bad beer, Or you can check it out in one of 415 movie theaters around the country. The last Mayweather fight did pretty well in the theaters, so you might want to buy your tickets ASAP. They’re $20 each. Assorted bars around the United States air events like this. Actual tickets are still available (more on that later), but if you’re in Vegas and don’t have $800 to throw around, you can go the cheaper closed circuit TV route.
Usually I do separate previews for the televised undercard, but I now will only do them for undercards that are worth half a damn. This one isn’t. So here’s your undercard preview. 1. The best fight of the lot is probably a featherweight bout between Daniel Ponce De Leon, a knockout artist, and Cornelius Lock, a Mayweather family protege with some skills who was in the best fight on the last Mayweather pay-per-view, a knockout win over Orlando Cruz. It’s a pretty decent match-up, but if this is as meaningful as an undercard fight gets, it’s bad news; a win probably puts the victor in the “contender” category. 2. Welterweight Saul Alvarez, a popular 19-year-old Mexican prospect who’s some how red-headed, looks to have a promising future and he is taking a good developmental fight for him at this point in his career, a bout against tough Jose Cotto. He’s the brother of Miguel but he isn’t as talented, Jose, but he was only OK as a lightweight and shouldn’t be too difficult for Alvarez two divisions higher. 3. Hector David Saldivia fights Said Ouali in a welterweight title eliminator, which is an indictment of sanctioning organizations such as the WBA the likes of which we get every week. Saldivia’s the typical South American fighter — glossy KO record, unknown opponents. Ouali put up a game but losing effort last year on Showtime against Selcuk Aydin. Who knows what we’ll get with this fight, given Saldivia’s inscrutable record.
Incidentally, some providers are airing additional undercard bouts before the show starts. Free boxing! Worth checking out, even if the additional bouts aren’t too spectacular on paper. See here for details.
You can watch the weigh-in live on Friday, if you want. It’s usually on ESPN’s website, for starters, but also may appear on ESPN or ESPNews or something of the sort. Doors open for the weigh-in at 1 p.m., but expect something on the airwaves at closer to 3 p.m. PT. These things are usually very corny ceremonies with various half-celebrities coming out to shout things designed to fire up the live crowd, then you see some dudes in their underwear, and unless there’s a controversy like a fighter not making weight, they aren’t very informative. But to each their own.
It’s no longer a surprise when the top papers do takes on the big fights, but it’s often good writing. ESPN’s Fight Credential has a ton of coverage, including a blog about what’s going down on the ground in Vegas this week. The Wall Street Journal’s always excellent Gordon Marino has a top-to-bottom rundown, including a bit of “what comes next at welterweight” drama, i.e. Manny Pacquiao. USA Today has been all over the fight, but this “Mayweather and Mosley are opposites” angle is one they go to first. The New York Times takes separate looks at Mayweather and Mosley, with the Mosley look especially good. The Los Angeles Times has done takes on both men, too, but sometimes I gotta pick just one, so here’s their “last words” article. The New York Daily News’ Tim Smith crushes on Mayweather some, but he’s a good boxing writer and he’s done a number of articles on the fight — this one’s the most boxing-focused. The Washington Post’s entry is less-than-stellar, alas, using a success story in boxing to explain why boxing soon shall die (never mind that we’re always worried about the “next” American superstar) — but it does focus on the interesting American vs. American angle, so there you go. I’ll add others here as they pop up.
How big is the business of this fight? You might not be able to tell from the ticket sales, but then, Mayweather fight tickets are usually ridiculously overpriced. Golden Boy Promotions chief Richard Schaefer predicts it could sell 4 million pay-per-views, which almost everyone thinks is stupid, but we all thought he was stupid when he predicted Mayweather-Juan Manuel Marquez would do 1 million, and he was right. Leave your prediction on PPV buys below in the comments section, if you have one. (And no matter what the pay-per-view profits are, each guy will do OK for themselves — Mosley is guaranteed $7 million to Mayweather’s $22.5 million. Final figures should be a good deal higher.)
P.S. For those of us who have been cured of our Celebreality addiction, you may not know that Floyd Mayweather is a running figure in a show about a member of TLC, a pop act relevant in the 1990s. Chili, I don’t care if you are Crazy, Sexy or Cool, but if you need someone to comfort you when Floyd stands you up on your next date, I’m here for you.
