Hype for Mayweather-Pacquiao fight gaining traction
I suppose the only thing better would have been The Hoff driving through a swarm of media and fans and enablers in KITT.
OK, so The Hoff driving Bieber through a swarm of media and fans and enablers in KITT would have been the best.
I’m not sure Floyd Mayweather Jr. owns an artificially intelligent electronic computer module in the body of a 1982 Pontiac Trans Am, although he could afford several fleets of them.
Maybe he’s waiting for one in a Bugatti model, or at least for MGM president Richard Sturm to make sure one is made for him. Might be time for another present.
The crazy part is, Tuesday seemed beyond normal for what you might expect, if you believe normal for a boxing media day is David Hasselhoff holding court for some who at least appeared interested in his opinion and Texas Tech football coach Kliff Kingsbury posing for photos inside the gym.
He’s reportedly recruiting the son of one of Mayweather’s bodyguards, which I suppose is why Kingsbury was clutching a hat with TMT on it. The Money Team.
Sort of a dangerous recruiting pitch for a coach from Texas, no?
Food was served, but The Hoff seemed pretty coherent, so I’m assuming he skipped any sort of cheeseburger being offered.
Mayweather finally arrived to promote the one fight that might not need promoting at all, his forever-anticipated unification welterweight championship against Manny Pacquiao on May 2 at the MGM Grand Garden.
Pacquiao holds his media gathering today in Los Angeles.
If for some reason Kingsbury is in attendance to recruit any offspring of Pacquiao close friend Buboy Fernandez, I will immediately implore all Red Raiders fans to publicly question the competency of their coach.
The hype for this fight is real, man. It’s gaining the sort of traction that The Hoff’s song “I’ve Been Looking for Freedom” did throughout Germany.
Which is to say off the charts.
The Hoff is huge in Berlin.
But will the fight, can the fight, possibly equal the hype?
Absolutely not.
Well, probably not.
“It’s not about the hype,” Mayweather said. “It’s about two future Hall of Famers in a megafight. This is not my first dance. I don’t enjoy all this like I once did. It’s about business now. It’s my job. I’m at a point where I am over all of this.
“From the matchup, it seems like an exciting fight. When I mentally picture the fight, to me it looks like it’s going to be a very exciting fight. I can’t really say it’s hype because this is real life.”
It probably would take a knockout — a dramatic, explosive, ridiculously sudden knockout — for May 2 to end on a note higher than what everything that comes before it will create.
Mayweather was terrific Tuesday. Professional. Engaging. Thoughtful. It was also good that he remained on Floyd Time, meaning he was absolutely going to arrive almost an hour late.
It might be the one thing he has in common with Justin Timberlake. That, and loads of money.
But waiting for Little Floyd meant a heavy dose of Big Floyd, and Mayweather Sr. didn’t disappoint in his remarks as father or trainer.
In a fight for which promoters haven’t felt the need for a world press tour or an all-access cable TV show to ensure you fork out a pay-per-view price tag of almost $100, the only person doing most of the talking until now has been Pacquiao trainer Freddie Roach.
Big Floyd changed all that Tuesday.
“This is just another opponent,” Mayweather Sr. said. “No more, no less. It’s always possible for a (fight) to live up to the hype, but I’m saying it’s impossible. It’s not real. I’m not worried about Manny being nothing. I don’t worry about his speed. I don’t worry about his power. I don’t worry about his thoughts. He’s going to get his ass whipped. You know it as well as that thing you’re holding in your hand.”
A tape recorder?
“First of all,” Senior continued, “Freddie Roach is a joke. Coach Roach, wouldn’t dare to approach, a roach with no hope. Manny has moved from first class to coach with the roach and now he will be sprayed with Raid and underpaid. At the end of the night, his title will be gone. I will smash Coach Roach. He should be in the Hall of Shame and not the (Hall of Fame). You got the wrong one.”
Eat your heart out, Pablo Neruda.
This is what we have been hoping for. Arrows slung from both sides. The wait is long — it makes those two weeks between NFL conference championship games and the Super Bowl seem like a few hours — and until now, the sexiest story we have seen wasn’t much of a story at all.
Top Rank chairman Bob Arum publicly stated his disapproval concerning things such as tickets and hotel rooms.
It was even suggested the fight might be in jeopardy.
Sure, and Buboy will one day spawn the next Andrew Luck.
“We’re not fighting Cassius Clay,” Mayweather Sr. said. “We’re fighting an ordinary guy. Floyd is going to crush his ass.”
I’m not sure if The Hoff agrees, but Kingsbury might if it means landing a bodyguard’s kid.
But it is true The Hoff jumped a taxi line in town the other night and told the driver, “It’s good to be me.”
The Hoff has done the impossible.
He has made me miss The Biebs.
Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can be heard from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday on “Gridlock,” ESPN 1100 and 100.9 FM. Follow him on Twitter: @edgraney