Billy’s Boxing Blog

Photo-Chop: Bret “The Threat” Newton
 
 
 The Golden Boy Promotions press release simply stated, The highly anticipated July 18 fight between Floyd Mayweather and Juan Manuel Marquez has been postponed due to a rib injury sustained by Mayweather while training. The next paragraph had a statement from Mayweather saying, “I am extremely disappointed that this fight has to be postponed, I was training very hard and looking forward to getting back in the ring on July 18th.”
 
 Horse crap! Or in this case, (Ticket Selling) Goat Crap!
 
 It seems pretty obvious that the real reason this fight was CANCELLED, (it will never get rescheduled), is because the truth is ticket sales were abysmal and Pretty Boy’s return to the ring was going to be more than Pretty Embarrassing for the self proclaimed “Cash Cow” of Boxing.
 
 That’s right, ticket sales were in the tank, no one was interested. A quick check of ticket availability on Ticketmaster minutes after receiving the press release told me the same information it had the week tickets went on sale. Blocks of tickets could be bought in almost any section of The MGM Arena add infinitum. And as we have said before, that is a very accurate gage on how PPV buys are going to go and all signs pointed to Mayweather vs. Marquez becoming a promotional catastrophe on every level.
 
 Do you think HBO is just a tad upset?
 
 Between the press conferences and cost of promotion up to this point you can go ahead and assume the tightly budgeted network took a pretty big hit to their wallets. It’s also pretty clear Golden Boy was willing to cut their losses short. It’s highly likely they funded the costs for the HBO produced 24/7 on the fight. With the premiere to be aired this weekend and more footage in the can, it’s pretty safe to assume Golden Boy will lose out on that investment.
 
 The Network and the Promoter must be livid. Meanwhile all Floyd has to do is tuck his tail behind his hind legs and run and hide for a while in the hopes boxing fans will forget this miscue.
 
 They won’t and I am sure the suits are taking notes as well.
 
 I doubt it’s a coincidence of this happening the day after Cotto drew 18,000 to MSG and raised his star status above anybody in the 147 pound division. Mayweather so believed he is now a box office star based on Oscar/Hatton numbers, he blindly overestimated the drawing power of his return. Not a chance in hell he ever fights Marquez, and I supremely doubt, based on the early numbers and the nonsense Floyd has just put Bob Arum through, that he will ever get a sniff of Cotto or Pacquiao. Arum who was more than surprised by the rare Sunday press release has already been quoted as saying that Manny, who was ringside for the Cotto fight, told Arum that he wants Cotto. Arum said that fight will go down on November 14th of this year in Las Vegas and since Arum holds both of those fighters in the palm of his hand, you can go ahead and put that down in ink on your calendar.
 
 After seeing what went down in New York on Saturday night you know Floyd is thinking, if not slobbering all over himself and Leonard Ellerbe, that a fight with Cotto would be the perfect fit and he could claim he was the one who put the butts in the seats. But Arum is way to savvy for that and he won’t allow Floyd to stake that Puerto Rican claim. Not now and most probably not ever!
 
 And again, since you can forget about Floyd vs. Marquez ever seeing the light of day, Mayweather has put himself in a pretty uncomfortable position. Not only are his true colors being exposed to the fans but it shouldn’t surprise him to be on the receiving end of Golden Boy’s Gucci footwear that may get firmly planted on his hind end as he is shown the door.
 
 As to the injury…how in the world did he hurt his rib? There is no way that Mayweather would use a sparring partner who worked the body that hard and those pity pat punches he throws on the heavy bag couldn’t pull taffy, let alone rib cartilage. This entire story appears as nothing more than blatant BS.
 
 Along with the afore mentioned phone call I placed after receiving the Mayweather Press Release I made another properly placed call and found out that members of Mayweather’s own management team were shocked and surprised that Floyd pulled out of the fight. They didn’t know! What does that tell you?
 
 That tells me that with the exception of Goldey Boy, Floyd didn’t tell anyone that he was going to bail out of the fight, which shows his complete disdain for anybody except himself, but there is really no surprise there.
 
 No surprise at all!

This entry was posted on Monday, June 15th, 2009 at 3:55 am and is filed under Boxing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.