I thought that once Jake Paul finally decides to fight a serious opponent in Gervonta Davis that maybe, just maybe, the silly exhibition fights that do a disservice to the world of boxing might be behind us. Well, I was wrong and I should have known that I would be wrong.
Even though it has nothing to do with Paul or MVP boxing promotion, and I can't believe I am about to say this. Mike Tyson announced that he is going to box against Floyd Mayweather. You heard that right! One of the smallest legends in the sport is going to face one the most dominant heavyweights of all time.
Tyson has already ruined his legacy not just by competing in the matchup with Jake Paul, but also by looking absolutely horrible in it. There is a reason why you haven't heard many sound bytes from interviews about the fight after it took place. Mike likely had a PR team that were advising him to just disappear into the background and hide or if he does do any interviews to talk as little as possible about it. Tyson earned a quick $20 million in that fight and given his financial background, it really shouldn't be all that surprising that he wants a bit more. We have to keep in mind that even though his fights are boring because dude is nearly 60, he can still milk his name for a few more fights and who better to do it with than a man who at his prime weighed 50 or more pounds less than him.
Mayweather, at the beginning of his career fought at 130 lbs, which is probably about what Mike Tyson weighed when he was robbing people on the streets of Brooklyn at age 11.
We don't know what kind of shape they are going to get into by the time a real date is announced but as of now Mike is usually well over 200 lbs and Mayweather is around 145 to 150. This is a massive difference.
The speed factor is going to be ridiculous and we have already seen how quickly Tyson gasses out, now imagine he is fighting against someone who is known for their incredible speed and avoidance of punches. It's not like Mayweather is going to just stand there and let Tyson throw arms as big as his own legs at him.
So I am calling it now, no matter what happens it is going to be bore-ring. We don't even have the full details as of yet and while people who are friends with these two and have a lot of respect for their careers are being nice, I think everyone knows that this fight is going to be an absolute joke. A joke that will likely have around $100 million involved in it sadly.
Mayweather doesn't need the money so I don't know what is motivating him.
In other news: The long-fought UFC fighter-pay-disparity lawsuit has finally ended, with the courts ruling in favor of the fighters and now the lawyers are going to get a bunch of money... oh and the fighters are going to get some of it as well.
The total payout that Zuffa inc. (the then parent company of UFC) will have to payout is $375 million and as you might expect a great deal of that money is going to to the blood-sucking lawyers: $126.7 million is off the lawyer-land and whatever left is being distributed among a lot of fighters depending on their circumstances. What this boils down to is that every fighter that was involved in the class-action lawsuit is going to get around $15k extra for fights they were involved in, in the past.
One of the crazy things that is happening with this payout is that while some of it is going to end up in the little guys' hands, such as a guy that fought for the then promotion minimum of $6000 is going to get around $15k but a great portion of the payout is going to end up in the hands of big names that had big fights (and big purses) already associated with them. For example: Ronda Rousey is slated to receive $6 million and Anderson Silva and even Conor McGregor are estimated to receive nearly $10 million each. I guess Conor can throw that towards his ever-growing legal fees.
I don't mean to be a downer, but isn't it just great when something that seems like it is meant to be good such as increasing fighter pay for the little guys gets some steam behind it and then the real winners end up being law-firms and the already extremely wealthy established fighters. I suppose those ex UFC guys who failed will be really happy to get a check for $15,000 in the mail but in the end i am kind of disappointed with the outcome of this lawsuit.
perhaps it can have some sort of positive impact on fighter pay moving forward and UFC can simply pay fighters more on the outset rather than wait for the long and drawn-out lawsuit to force them to do it. One thing is certain, I would imagine the contracts for UFC fighters just became about 10 pages longer.