By Brent Matteo Alderson

Floyd Mayweather is cocky to the point to where sometimes his perception of himself borders on fantasy, but don’t let this false bravado fool you, Mayweather has arrived and like it or not, next to Oscar De La Hoya, he’s the sport’s biggest star.

De La Hoya’s bout with Mayweather shattered the previous pay per view record of 1.99 million pay per view buys set by Tyson Holyfield in 1997 with 2.15 million buys. Undoubtedly some of this can be attributed to the bout’s promotion which included HBO’s heralded documentary 24/7, which shaped the bout into a melodrama of fistic proportions and gave the public a glimpse into the life of the man who calls himself "Pretty Boy" Floyd.  Even though De La Hoya has always had the golden touch at the box office, Floyd has to be partially credited with the economic success of the bout.  He may not be the most exciting fighter in the world, but he’s acknowledged as its best, at least by most observers. 

The undefeated record, boxing bloodlines, and incredible achievements which have led him to alphabet titles in five different weight classes have finally captured the public’s eye and the Pretty Boy is finally recognized as a super-star.  And his appearance on Dancing with the Stars will only exponentially increase his marketability and expose him to a new whole new demographic:  the female one.  So this winter when men across America are watching the Hatton fight and exclaiming, “I hate this Mayweather I hope Hatton knocks him out,” their wives can look over and comment, “Oh I saw him on Dancing with the Stars!”

Surprisingly Mayweather’s prowess as an economic power house been questioned by respected individuals throughout the industry.  These critics claim that the economic success of De La Hoya-Mayweather bout can be attributed to the fact that the general public was ready for a so-called super fight that had been long overdue and that it was eager to embrace De La Hoya in the final stages of his career. 

Sometimes the old adage “absence makes the heart grow fonder” rings true and seemingly this has been the case with Oscar and the public because his bout with Bernard Hopkins only did one million buys while his bout with the charismatic, but limited Ricardo Mayorga a little over a year and a half later did a phenomenal 925,000 buys.  This was a shock to most insiders since Hopkins is a living legend and on paper the Executioners’ bout with the Golden Boy was a historic match, kind of like a twenty first century Carlos Monzon-Jose Napoles while the Mayorga bout was more of a novelty, the semi-retired Golden Boy versus the foul mouthed knockout artist who had been annihilated by Trinidad in his last major fight. 

Something happened during the time that De La Hoya had been out of the ring. Subconsciously the public realized that all of boxing’s cross over stars had vanished by the waist side and something inside society’s consciousness yearned for an active boxer to represent the sport that has always had an important place in American pop-culture. 

Tyson lost to Kevin McBride without providing any excuses except by commenting that “he doesn’t have it anymore and that he has too much respect for the sport to continue fighting”.  Even though most boxing fans feel that Tyson’s career ended on February 10, 1992 when he was found guilty of rape, it took a beating at the hands of an uncoordinated chunky Irishman to prove it to the public.  There has been other stars although none have been as big as Tyson, but at least Holyfield, Foreman, Sugar Ray Leonard, and Oscar De La Hoya still regularly drew in the casual sports fan and turned boxing matches into sporting events, but now they are either grazing in the pastures or semi-retired like De La Hoya who has only fought twice since 2004.   

Evander Holyfield is still active, but he’s 45-years-old and is probably a grandfather right now and lost a unanimous to the Sultan Ibragimov last weekend.  He hasn’t beaten a top ten fighter since he scored a technical decision over Hasim Rachman in June of 2002.  At 44 the win over Fres Oquendo was impressive, but Fres was a Ruiz knockout victim and nowhere close to the top ten.  Savarese was a bum when he was in his prime and he’s also in his forties, and Bates was an insurance Salesman. So in all reality Evander’s recent loss will not affect boxing because in the public’s eye, Holyfield’s career has been over for a long time.   Most casual sports fans aren’t even aware that he is still active. 

Boxing maybe marginalized and its popularity among the masses may be waning, but it’s still a social endeavor that has played such an important part of American history that it’s engrained into the fabric of American culture. 

Some people consider John L. Sullivan to be the first athlete to become a cultural icon.  Jack Johnson broke the color barrier in professional sports, Jack Dempsey was hitting them out of the ring like the Babe was hitting them out of the ball park in the roaring twenties, and Rocky Marciano represented the silent generation of the 1950’s just as Muhammed Ali represented social change in the 60’s. Boxing isn’t going anywhere and from a macro-cognitive perspective, I think there’s a little something inside the public’s consciousness that needs there to be a famous boxer fighting in a super fight from time to time. It’s just one of those things that’s always been there.  I think that’s one of the factors that opened the public’s eye to Floyd Mayweather.  It may not be right, but it’s hard for a foreign  boxer to establish themselves with the American  public just ask Lennox Lewis and besides Floyd, there aren’t too many fighters that can step up and fill the vacancy. 

In this day and age of the bling-bling, Floyd’s flamboyancy, good looks, and undefeated record fit the bill perfectly.  

Yes, it’s a fact that De La Hoya’s participation in the fight with Floyd must be credited for the majority of the revenue produced from their bout, but Mayweather still deserves much of the credit.  Their bout just didn’t just surpass the non heavyweight pay per view mark of 1.4 million set by De La Hoya-Trinidad, it shattered it and also broke the record set by heavyweights. 

It’s true that Floyd’s previous pay-per-views weren’t overwhelming successes, but his fights with Zab Judah and Auturo Gatti did respectable numbers.  The Judah fight did 370,000 buys while the Gatti fight did 360,000 buys, and the Baldomir fight yielded 325,000 buys. In comparison, Barrera-Juarez did approximately 160,000 buys and Tarver-Jones III did 415,000 buys.  All of those numbers are in the past.  Like it or not the public has embraced Floyd as the sport’s ambassador and his new found stardom and notoriety that transcends boxing will spark enough media attention and public interest to increase his numbers substantially. 

Remember Ali used to say "it doesn’t matter if they like me or hate me just as long as they pay to see me," and a lot of people don’t like Mayweather and instead of fighting a Zab Judah who had just lost to Carlos Baldomir, Floyd is going to be fighting an undefeated and relatively popular fighter in Ricky Hatton, who is an accomplished pugilist in his own right.  Hatton is the legitimate world champion at 140, won a paper title at 147, and is the first British fighter to have ever won Ring Magazine’s Fighter of The Year award.  Throw in the fact that he has an exciting style and he’s Caucasian and you have a blockbuster.

There’s no doubt about it, the fight is going to be a huge success and it’s going to be an event that will transcend the sport and catch the attention of the casual sports fan.  It sold out in less than an hour and 10,000 close circuit seats have already been purchased and the fight isn’t even until December. 

The fight will easily do 600,000 buys and could hit the 800,000 mark which would be good for our sport since an MMA writer friend of mine confidently boasts that after De La Hoya retires, a boxing event will never get another 1 million buy rate.  If Mayweather continues to win, there’s a very realistic possibility that some of his future bouts could possibly hit the one million mark.  And I hope it happens because like it or not, Floyd is the face of boxing.   

Notes:

Raul Marquez wants a title shot.  Give me a break.  He was an alright 154 pounder and probably wouldn’t have lost to Campas if he had taken more time off after the beating he received from Keith Mullings, but when was the last time he beat anybody even resembling a contender.  Every time he steps up in class, he loses in a boring fashion.

I want to give props to Billy Zumbrun.  He has a 21-10 (11) and he’s only six foot and 215 pounds, but gives it his all every time out.  You might remember him, he’s the guy that sent a 280 pound Riddick Bowe back into retirement.  Well last Friday on the walk out bout on the ShoBox card which was promoted by Thompson boxing, Zumbrum fought Donnell Holmes who came in with a 27-0-2 record and he made him work the entire night.  Old Billy threw short crisp combos and backed up the bigger Holmes the first half of the fight while the crowd chanted “Billy,” but towards the end of the bout Holmes asserted his self and scored a knock down with a body shot which probably accounted for him winning the split decision. 

Afterward Billy looked dejected but he shouldn’t be, he’s a tough son of a bitch that makes guys think, “Am I sure I want to do this for a living?”  He made Riddick Bowe think twice about continuing his boxing career and gave a good account of himself against Brian Minto on ESPN last year.  Billy is officially my favorite heavyweight journeyman.  

I published Rafael Marquez’s interview in The Ring a few months ago and have Israel’s Vazquez’s interview coming out in the magazine next month, but I kind of stayed away from writing because of a thesis I wrote last summer and was kind of burnt out. It's good to be back.

Brent Matteo Alderson, a graduate of UCLA, has been part of the staff at BoxingScene.com since 2004 and teaches Spanish at the High School level in Southern California.  He has published articles in Ring Magazine, KO, World Boxing, Boxing 2006, and Latin Boxing Magazine.  He has also been featured on the ESPN Classic television program “Who’s Number One?”  Please e-mail any comments to BoxingAficionado@aol.com