Promoter Lou DiBella is not exactly intrigued by the Floyd Mayweather-Logan Paul Showtime pay-per-view exhibition match (set for 8 rounds) on June 6 at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida, but he has no plans of fulminating against it either, as though it were a damaging indictment on the sport of boxing.
Live and let live, he says.
“I’m not purist about any of this sh!t,” DiBella told SecondsOut. “You know my theory on all that. I’m not into purism in boxing.
“People can be entertained any way they want and if people want to go in their pocket and spend money for things that can entertain them, I can choose not to watch those things, but I’m not going to jump up and down or complain about an event. If I don’t want to watch it, I won’t watch it. If you don’t want to watch it, don’t watch it. If other people do, god bless them.”
From a competition standpoint, however, DiBella finds the bout completely farcical, even for exhibition standards. In his only previous experience in a boxing ring in 2019, Paul lost to fellow Youtube influencer and boxing newbie KSI. Meanwhile, Mayweather currently sports a 50-0 record with 27 knockouts. Mayweather’s last exhibition match was on New Year’s Eve in Japan against Tenshin Nasukawa, knocking out the Japanese kick-boxer in 139 seconds for a reported $9 million payday.
“If people want to buy it, it’s cool, but it doesn’t have the same intrigue for me as a Jake Paul [Logan’s brother who has a 3-0 professional boxing record] fight,” DiBella continued. “I sort of think it’s ridiculous. A guy 0-1 as a fighter shouldn’t be having an exhibition with one of the greatest fighters who ever lived. Will I be buying it? I may. Who knows. It depends on what I have going on that night. But I’m diseased. I watch almost anything boxing related. I don’t know.”
Mayweather himself has hinted at the comical nature of this event by referring to the event as a “legalized bank robbery” on a recent airing of “Inside Mayweather vs. Paul” on Showtime. Indeed, however ludicrous this arrangement is, one thing is for certain: "Money" Mayweather is set to rake in another substantial windfall.
“It’s certainly a no-lose proposition [for Mayweather],” DiBella said. “He’ll have some fun and he’ll do whatever he wants in there against Logan Paul. It’s sort of absurd – kind of like fighting me.”
