Some of friends are watching the Mayweather/Cotto fight tonight. They have invited me to watch with them. Apparently Mayweather is making 32 million dollars on it. So what is the appeal of this fight?
I liken it to watching a 200 lb. and below football league or a 6'0" under basketball game. Is this not a fair comparison?
I'm told that Mayweather is the greatest current fighter in the world, but there are at least 100s of people that wouldn't just beat him, but would literary KILL him if he stepped into the ring with them. This seems absurd.
Others will call him the "greatest pound for pound fighter". This, I'm told, means that if he was the same size as every other boxer (while all other variables were held constant), he'd beat every other boxer in the world. Again, this argument is bad one because, for every boxer to be his size, the others would have to either shrink, which might make give them possible advantages that they currently don't have OR Mayweather would have to grow, possibly taking away whatever advantage he derives out of his size.
Furthermore, why is size the only variable isolated in such arguments. That seems arbitrary. Maybe we should categorize boxers into punch/minute classifications. Or reach classifications. Then we can claim that if boxer X had the same reach as everyone else, he'd beat everyone.
So even if Mayweather (or Pacquio) ends his career with 200 wins and 0 losses, what has he accomplished? He's the greatest boxer among a group of people smaller than the average American male. Wow. How impressive. That's like winning the D3 national championship. It's an accomplishment, but we don't act like its the Superbowl. How is THIS fight which is getting MNC type hype and the potential Pacuiao/Mayweather fight getting Superbowl type hype.
Am I the only one seeing it this way?
[This message has been edited by PascalsWager (edited 5/5/2012 5:17p).]
I liken it to watching a 200 lb. and below football league or a 6'0" under basketball game. Is this not a fair comparison?
I'm told that Mayweather is the greatest current fighter in the world, but there are at least 100s of people that wouldn't just beat him, but would literary KILL him if he stepped into the ring with them. This seems absurd.
Others will call him the "greatest pound for pound fighter". This, I'm told, means that if he was the same size as every other boxer (while all other variables were held constant), he'd beat every other boxer in the world. Again, this argument is bad one because, for every boxer to be his size, the others would have to either shrink, which might make give them possible advantages that they currently don't have OR Mayweather would have to grow, possibly taking away whatever advantage he derives out of his size.
Furthermore, why is size the only variable isolated in such arguments. That seems arbitrary. Maybe we should categorize boxers into punch/minute classifications. Or reach classifications. Then we can claim that if boxer X had the same reach as everyone else, he'd beat everyone.
So even if Mayweather (or Pacquio) ends his career with 200 wins and 0 losses, what has he accomplished? He's the greatest boxer among a group of people smaller than the average American male. Wow. How impressive. That's like winning the D3 national championship. It's an accomplishment, but we don't act like its the Superbowl. How is THIS fight which is getting MNC type hype and the potential Pacuiao/Mayweather fight getting Superbowl type hype.
Am I the only one seeing it this way?
[This message has been edited by PascalsWager (edited 5/5/2012 5:17p).]