Home Business Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor could impact De La Hoya’s GGG-Canelo, Cotto-Kamegai fights

Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor could impact De La Hoya’s GGG-Canelo, Cotto-Kamegai fights

darudemagJun 15, 2017Business, EntertainmentComments Off on Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor could impact De La Hoya’s GGG-Canelo, Cotto-Kamegai fights

Oscar De La Hoya said that Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor could irreparably damage the sport. It could certainly impact business for two of his fights.

A couple of weeks ago, Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya wrote an open letter to fans on his Facebook page, outlining the reasons why Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor is bad for the sport of boxing. Here’s just a brief excerpt from his statement:

Now, I know critics will say that I’m only writing this letter because my company is promoting what will be the culmination of an outstanding boxing year when Canelo Alvarez takes on Gennady “GGG” Golovkin in September, and I don’t want anything to distract attention away from that fight.

But my interest is in the health of boxing as a whole. It always has been. And if Floyd were to come out of retirement to take on someone like Keith “One–time” Thurman, Errol Spence or some other top welterweight, not only would I applaud the fight, I’d be the first one on line for a ticket.

That kind of fight is what the fans – and I am a fan first — deserve.

Which brings me back to the circus.

Floyd’s and Conor’s motivation is clear. It’s money. In fact, they don’t even pretend it’s not. But it’s also a lack of consequences for when the fight ends up being the disaster that is predicted. After this fight, neither of them will need us anymore. Floyd will go back to retirement — presumably for good this time with another nine-figure paycheck — and Conor will go back to the UFC.

It’s a win-win for them. It’s a lose-lose for us. We’ll be $100 lighter and we will have squandered another opportunity to bring boxing back to its rightful place as the sport of kings.

At this point, only we can shut the circus down by making it clear that we won’t pay to see a joke of a fight and telling our casual-fan friends that they shouldn’t either.

Well guess what? Mayweather vs. McGregor is happening. De La Hoya hasn’t commented yet on the major announcement, but I imagine “happy” is not one of his reactions to the story. Boxing reporter Chris Mannix did pass along this tweet, however.

Golden Boy not least bit concerned #MayweatherMcGregor affects #CaneloGGG. GBP sees two different audiences, different cable bill cycles.
— Chris Mannix (@ChrisMannixYS) June 14, 2017

Well that’s all fine and dandy, but Golovkin vs. Alvarez was set to be the biggest PPV fight of 2017 until Mayweather vs. McGregor unthinkably came along. While no sane person believes Floyd-Conor is more competitive than GGG-Canelo, the media attention will be fixated overwhelmingly on Floyd and Conor even well after the fight itself is over. Mayweather vs. McGregor is clearly the more profitable matchup and will outperform GGG-Canelo in total revenue across the board. It’s also going to be on Showtime PPV, so under no circumstances will they willingly try to promote an HBO event.

As if that wasn’t bad enough for De La Hoya, August 26th is the same night as Miguel Cotto’s return to the ring against Yoshihiro Kamegai. Cotto ditched Roc Nation to sign with Golden Boy, and now HBO’s live event will be a relative afterthought now that it doesn’t have the night all to itself.

Dana White stated that August better suits a potential year-end UFC return for McGregor but beforehand there was a rumor that the primary reason behind pushing Mayweather vs. McGregor up was to “take some of the revenue and energy from Canelo-Triple G before that September date.” Maybe both things are true, especially considering Mayweather’s longstanding beef with De La Hoya. Regardless of the motives, Golden Boy Promotions definitely stands to get double dinged up thanks to the seemingly impossible bout becoming reality. (Mookie Alexander – SB Nation)