America at Large: One answers to "Golden Boy", the other to "Pretty Boy". Each is somewhat accustomed to being cast as the guy in the white hat, but every fight must have its villain, and Floyd Mayweather seems more than willing to assume that role.
At the opening stop of their 11-city press tour, Mayweather poked Oscar De La Hoya in the chest and called him a "pussy". At a Washington dinner a day later, Pretty Boy stole Oscar's salmon right off the plate and had eaten it before the Golden Boy realised what had happened.
De La Hoya has fought just four times in the past four years, and he lost two of those, but he has been guaranteed the lion's share of the purse in his coming Cinco de Mayo bout with the undefeated Mayweather, a match-up which is already being touted as "boxing's Super Bowl".
("The Fifth of May", in Spanish, is a national holiday in Mexico also widely celebrated in the US. It commemorates the victory of Mexican forces over the French occupational forces in the Battle of Puebla on May 5th, 1862.)
Freddie Roach, who is training De La Hoya, has been guaranteed $650,000 for one night's work - a figure which will double if his man wins. Roach was summoned not because Floyd Mayweather Sr, who has trained the Golden Boy for the past half-dozen years, had misgivings about working the corner opposite his son, but because he priced himself out of the market by demanding $2 million for doing so.
Mayweather pere did turn up at the next-to-last stop of the tour in Las Vegas earlier this week and affected a rapprochement with his estranged son. Indications are Mayweather Sr will wind up helping his son attempt to beat his former pupil.
"He may be in the corner, but not in your corner," Pretty Boy taunted De La Hoya in Vegas, before adding, "We have our ups and downs, but he's still my father. If it comes down to us going to war, I'm going to ride with my father."
The De La Hoya-Mayweather caravan was described at virtually every stop as a travelling circus, but that appears to have been the promoters' intent from its inception. When you throw the doors open to a squealing, autograph-seeking public and hawk souvenirs and T-shirts in the lobby, it should be plain enough that the concerns of the media are just about the last consideration on what was mislabelled a "media tour", and it was plain enough to most of us in the corralled-off "press" section in the New York Waldorf-Astoria that day that we were there to serve as props.
The 17,000-seat MGM Grand Garden sold out three hours after the windows opened for the May 5th fight a few weeks ago, well before the tour even began. With no tickets left to sell, the purpose of the exercise was to boost pay-per-view sales for a fight that has been modestly entitled "The World Awaits". HBO, which is charging $54.95 a pop for De La Hoya-Mayweather, is a willing co-conspirator, having committed a record publicity budget.
The $19 million in the bank from the live gate had nearly covered the $20 million guarantee ($12 million to Oscar, $8 million for Pretty Boy) before the first buy. An additional 1,400 closed-circuit venues and television sales (promoters claim the bout will be shown in 176 countries) will further enrich the participants in what figures to be the largest-grossing non-heavyweight fight in history.
Mayweather, undefeated in 37 bouts, is widely acclaimed as the world's best pound-for-pound fighter. De La Hoya owns the World Boxing Council light-middleweight title which will be in dispute on May 5th, but he also owns a lot more, including real estate holdings in Southern California. His enormously successful promotional company is staging the fight.
"Why am I still fighting?" he asked rhetorically. "I love boxing. My body can still do it. I feel strong. I feel fast."
The Las Vegas sports books, which have posted Mayweather nearly a 2 to 1 favourite, apparently do not share De La Hoya's optimism.
The ringmaster's role for the circus tour was assumed by Richard Schaefer, the Swiss-born CEO of Golden Boy Productions, whose Teutonic accent made him sound like Col Wilhelm Klink attempting to maintain order on an old Hogan's Heroes rerun.
In addition to trying to restrain Pretty Boy from taunting his boss right over the edge, Schaefer's duties included logistical oversight of the tour. His patience was severely tested last week when Mayweather demanded to use the private jet leased for the tour to fly back to Las Vegas for a 30th birthday party arranged by his pal, the rapper 50 Cent.
In the end, Mayweather was allowed to fly home for the birthday bash, but not on the Gulfstream. Instead, Schaefer booked him a first-class seat on a commercial flight. Incensed by this perceived slight, Pretty Boy accused Golden Boy Promotions of penury.
"I don't know how he could make any comment about us being cheap on this tour," shot back Schaefer. "We've spent almost $1 million on it, flying him on a Gulfstream, having him stay in the Waldorf in New York, the Ritz-Carlton in Houston, the Shore Club in Miami. I don't know how the word "cheap" could ever come to mind."
Roach, who has trained 18 world champions, Steve Collins among them, claims May 5th will provide "a huge shot in the arm for boxing.
"When I had the heavyweight champion, Michael Moorer versus Holyfield, that was a big fight, but this is already 10 times bigger," said Roach, recently named the 2006 Trainer of the Year by the Boxing Writers Association of America. "It's just huge. I believe this is going to be the biggest fight of all time."
The biggest? Probably. The best? We'll see.
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