Well, if you paid to watch it, I sure hope you enjoyed it. Floyd “Money” Mayweather sure enjoyed himself yesterday in Dubai as he made a fool of grossly over-matched foe, You-Tuber Deji Olatunji. The 45 year old who absolutely loves these no risk, big reward exhibition events, played with his “rival” for five rounds, even dancing, gyrating and spinning around in-between the “action.”
Then, having taken at least one shot (and credit to Deji for managing to land anything on the so-called TBE), Mayweather stepped it up and got Deji out of there in round six. Mayweather poured it on and referee Kenny Bayless dived in and stopped it. Easy work for Mayweather, just the way he likes it these days.
So what next for Mayweather? There will be more exhibition bouts to come, no doubt about it. And, as long as the fans are willing to pay to watch – this unfathomable to some during these tough times where money is short – Mayweather will keep going to the bank with a big smile on his face. Mayweather says he is providing entertaining events, and for some fans he is. But this whole past weekend was for many a stark advert for how far the great sport of has fallen. At a time when the big fights we all want to see are failing to happen (see Fury-Joshua, Crawford-Spence, Davis-Garcia) two high-profile exhibition bouts got the lion’s share of attention – Ricky Hatton against Marco Antonio Barrera being the weekend’s other exhibition offering.
With You-Tubers becoming boxers and with them generating big numbers, bigger numbers than actual fights between actual boxers, it’s no wonder the old timers are shaking their heads. It has been a disappointing last few weeks for boxing, that’s for sure. There are still a few weeks to go before the end of the year, and it’s to be hoped we get some good, honest action before 2022 comes to an end.
Here’s looking forward to Roman Gonzalez-Juan Francisco Estrada III, Kazuto Ioka-Joshua Franco, and one or two other fights still to come. And here’s to a bigger, better 2023.
