22.01.07 – By James Slater: The much anticipated super fight between Oscar De La Hoya and Floyd Mayweather has been announced officially to take place at The MGM Grand in Las Vegas, as we all know. And this choice of venue was no surprise to anyone, what with Vegas being a virtual second home for “The Golden Boy.” What may have come as a shock, however, is the incredibly high prices that tickets for the fight are going for. A ringside seat will cost a staggering two thousand dollars, while even a “cheap” seat will set fans back over two hundred bucks.
Surely then, this epic in the making is THE most expensive boxing match in history, at least from the perspective of the punters who will have to shell out a small fortune to witness it live and in person. Epic in the making? Well, that’s my point in this article – will the fight serve to give the fans who are fortunate enough to be there value for money?
Let’s be honest, it’s very possible the fight could be a letdown. With so much at stake for both men, the bout may unfold as one being fought with much caution. And while both Oscar and Floyd have given us thrills in the past, especially in Oscar’s case, they have too given us boring affairs. Indeed, most fans nowadays, if asked if they would rate “Pretty Boy” at the
top of the list of boxers they most want to see perform, would respond with a resounding no. For while Floyd is without doubt a superbly skilled boxing master, he has received more than his share of negative publicity just lately for failing to please those amongst his fan base that love nothing more than a good, hard fight. Boxing smart is simply Floyd’s game, and let’s face it, who can blame him for using an approach that clearly works for him? Mayweather, having moved up to challenge naturally bigger men, is never going to stand toe-to-toe with them is he? No, Floyd is a master at “playing it safe,” as his critics put it – Floyd himself would refer to his tactics as something else entirely, of course – and he will surely do so again when he steps in with De La Hoya.
Oscar, as we know, will be the much bigger man. Having fought at light middleweight for some years now “The Golden Boy” will almost certainly have an advantage over 154 pound newcomer Mayweather. This basically means then, that it will be up to Oscar to provide the fireworks. With it being pretty much a given that Floyd will box in a way not too far removed from the way
in which he did so last time out against Carlos Baldomir, the only way the fight will catch fire for lovers of a slugfest will be if De La Hoya finds a way to force him to deviate from such a game-plan. If he can’t, what then? The fight could soon start to anger the fans in attendance, especially considering the vast amounts of cash they have parted with to be there. And while there is nothing wrong with a chess match style fight – a type of boxing match many fans actually prefer as apposed to a brutal war – I sense that boos will begin to fall on the ring if anything other than a classic develops.
With the hype for this one guaranteed to go through the roof many fight fans will simply not tolerate a less than fabulous fight. Both men have, as stated earlier, given us relative disappointments in the past ( De La Hoya Vs. Trinidad, De La Hoya Vs. Mosley II, Mayweather Vs. Baldomir, Mayweather Vs. Castillo, for example ) therefore another one is more than possible. So
are the incredibly highly priced tickets worth the gamble?
We all want the fight to be great as it will be under so much scrutiny that anything else will be deemed bad for boxing. And purely from an event standpoint May 5th cannot fail to be exciting. Let’s just hope that when the two legends get in the ring this excitement lives through the remainder of the evening. Both men are going to receive amounts of money the average person could never even dream of seeing. These same people, having put up a big slice of the revenue necessary to pay the duo of talented pugilists, deserve to see that this money was well spent. There have been a number of big fight letdowns recently; let’s cross our fingers and hope De La Hoya – Mayweather is not another.