De La Hoya: Mayweather-McGregor is a step backwards for boxing

De La Hoya: Mayweather-McGregor is a step backwards for boxing

De La Hoya: Mayweather-McGregor is a step backwards for boxing

De La Hoya: Mayweather-McGregor is a step backwards for boxing

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Oscar De La Hoya is still railing on the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Conor McGregor fight being bad for the sport of boxing in general. De La Hoya sounded off on the subject last week when he tore into the Mayweather-McGregor fight in seeing it as little more than just a money grab due to Mayweather facing a novice in boxing. McGregor has never fought in a boxing ring, and he’ll be going into the Mayweather fight with no experience in the sport.

Mayweather is being allowed to fight a novice in a fight could potentially have a price tag of $100 on PPV. There’s talk that the Mayweather-McGregor fight will have a high price tag on PPV. De La Hoya is worried because he thinks there will be a lot of fans that will feel that they ripped off when the Mayweather-McGregor fight fails to produce an exciting match. It’s a match that has mismatch written all over it.

When you have someone that has never laced up a pair of boxing gloves in a professional fight going into the ring to face the best boxer of this era in Mayweather, it stands to reason that the fight is going to be really bad one. De La Hoya in charge of a successful promotional, and he has a reason to be upset at seeing Mayweather potentially hurting the sport of boxing with his PPV fight against McGregor.

“We have an event, which is a real fight obviously,” said De La Hoya to Villianfhy about the Saul “Canelo” Alvarez vs. Gennady “GGG” Golovkin fight, which could wind up undercut by the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Conor McGregor fight. “This is nothing against anybody. It’s just that I’m standing behind a sport I dearly love and that’s boxing. You have a UFC fighter who has no experience whatsoever in boxing. He has no professional experience, nothing, wanting to face the best boxer of our generation in his very first fight. What’s going to happen? People are going to be turned off with boxing one again. So that’s my beef. I’m coming in as the savior of the sport by making Triple G and Canelo, making all these great fights, and then you have that [Mayweather vs. McGregor]. It’s a step backwards, not a step forwards,” said a visibly irritated De La Hoya.

You can look at the Mayweather-McGregor fight in a variety of different ways. De La Hoya appears to see it an example of greed, lack of foresight and selfishness on Mayweather’s part. The reason why it could be viewed as a case of greed is because Mayweather would be going for the money against McGregor in getting a huge payday that would help himself, but it could potentially leave devastation to the sport of boxing in the aftermath.

The casual boxing fans that normally don’t order fights might catch the buzz of the Mayweather-McGregor hype and purchase the right thinking it’ll be an exciting affair. Since the fight is basically a tremendous mismatch on paper, it’s not going to be an entertaining fight. The results will likely see a lot of angry fans that won’t want to purchase another boxing event ever again. It would a predictable reason. It would be that way for anybody. If you spend money on a product that is terrible, you’re not going to be eager to buy that product again. It’ll be a lost opportunity for boxing to win over the casual fans to turn them into more diehard fans in order to expand the base.

Mayweather will be able to ride off into the sunset with a lot of money from the McGregor fight without him needing to worry about fighting ever again. There’s a possibly that Mayweather could get the same kind of money he made in his fight with Manny Pacquiao in 2015. Mayweather made a huge amount of dough in a fight that turned out to be a dud because neither fighter was willing or able to perform at a high level. Pacquiao complained of having a shoulder injury. Mayweather wasn’t going to take risks despite the big payday he was getting for the fight.

McGregor’s UFC boss Dana White doesn’t understand why De La Hoya is criticizing the Mayweather-McGregor fight, because he says he recently put a really bad fight between Saul Canelo Alvarez and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. on HBO PPV. That fight was a really bad one with Canelo beating Chavez Jr. by a one-sided 12 round decision. White feels that the Mayweather-McGregor fight is a good one, and he doesn’t think De La Hoya should be putting it down. White doesn’t understand where De La Hoya is coming from. He views it as De La Hoya not having confidence in the September 16 fight between Canelo and Golovkin. What White fails to understand is De La Hoya is thinking well beyond the Canelo-Golovkin fight. He’s obviously viewing the Mayweather-McGregor fight hurting PPV for years with the casual boxing fans choosing to avoid boxing so they don’t get burned again.

“I’m saying what the [expletive], Oscar?” said Dana White to TMZ.com. “Oscar and I have always had a great relationship. He’s talking about a ‘Money grab.’ Canelo-Chavez? You’re going to put on a fight like that and call Mayweather-McGregor a ‘money grab’ when you were trying to make that fight 4 months ago. It’s crazy. What is this guy doing? What’s his deal? That’s what I’m basically saying to him. What’s up? Why would you say something like that? Instead, it makes him look like he has no confidence whatsoever in Triple G vs. Canelo, which I have come out and said publically is a great fight. I like the fight. I’ll watch the fight. He seems completely insecure, and it’s one of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen. Talk about two-faced and contradictory, and he goes on and on hating. It’s like he has no confidence in his fight. Oscar, what the [expletive] is going on with you? Are you nuts? Are you out of your mind? Have you lost your [expletive] mind? What’s going on?” said White.

Main Events promoter Kathy Duva agrees with De La Hoya about the Mayweather-McGregor fight not helping boxing one bit. She’s not going to tell the fans what they should watch, however. That’s where she’s different from De La Hoya. She quietly sees the Mayweather-McGregor fight as not a good one for the sport, but she isn’t going to tell the boxing fans not to watch it.

“I can understand his frustration,” said Main Events promoter Kathy Duva to Villianfy Media about De La Hoya being upset about the fight between Mayweather and McGregor. “It seems like every time we get casual fans to come watch fights, we end up shooting ourselves in the foot, because we disappoint them. That’s what happened with [Manny] Pacquiao and Mayweather, and it’s going to happen again. People that know boxing shouldn’t be surprised when they’re disappointed. Personally, I wouldn’t tell people what they should do, but I do agree people will feel cheated when it’s over. Mayweather’s legacy is intact. He doesn’t have to worry about it. He’s made a lot of money. He’s a great marketer. He’s a great fighter. He doesn’t need to worry about his legacy at this point. He’s found another way to make sure he makes a fortune. He’ll create a buzz, everyone will get excited and pay $100, and then they’ll all say they’ll never watch boxing. That’s the part Oscar is addressing, and I agree with him. It makes sense for both of them because they can make so much money. McGregor can make more money in one night than he can for the rest of his career, and Floyd’s going to make the kind of money he made with Manny [Pacquiao]. Yeah, it makes sense for them. It doesn’t advance the sport one inch,” said Duva about the Mayweather-McGregor fight.

It’s hard to imagine there being 4.6 million households that will purchase the Mayweather-McGregor, because there are so many fans that are absolutely against this fight. It would take a lot of casual fans of boxing and MMA to bring in the kinds of numbers we saw in the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight. I don’t think the hardcore fans of both sports are going to want to pay their hard-earned money to see Mayweather beat up on a guy with no boxing skills like McGregor. There’s a saying, ‘Let the buyer beware. ‘ In the end, I think the fans will stay away from the Mayweather-McGregor , because they’ll see the fight for what it is. Mayweather-McGregor can still make a lot of money if the fight sells for $100 a pop for each household. I can’t see the price being marked up to $150. That would be too ridiculous. It might be the future though.

The boxing fans will eventually come back at some point, but it might take a while for them to cool off. For a lot of fans, I don’t think they’ll ever come back. If I had to pay to see an MMA fight, and if was boring wrestling match, I would never purchase another fight ever. Unfortunately, I think a lot of fans will stay away from the sport forever if they get burned by the Mayweather-McGregor fight.