The 'Flop Of The Century'

The final numbers have yet to be tallied, but boxing's $1-billion bout seems to have earned Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather at least $120-million each. Arena tickets sales are said to have reached $72 million. Fans spent another $300 million on pay-per-view. Tickets to the weigh-in went for $130. It was supposed to have been the Fight of the Century. Bill Littlefield is among those who don't think it was.

By now the checks have cleared, I guess. Each fighter shakes his head
And wonders at the riches that have lavishly been spread
Upon the latest showbiz triumph over which a grand
Illusion once again appeared, as all across the land
The buzz about a bout transcendent built on hype and hope,
Has left each guy who bought it feeling sort of like a dope.

Was anybody “Shocked! Shocked!” the combatants couldn’t live
Up to the monstrous billing? And that neither one could give
A knockdown to the customers, much less a knocking out?
They gave us what we should have guessed: an outcome fraught with doubt…
The doubt that has some thinking not just “Whether,” more like “When?”
As suckers tell each other that the two must fight again.

The complication this time is a suit that seems to charge
That Pacquiao fought injured, so the odds were very large
That he would not hold up his end of that most august fight;
That he could only seem to punch…and if that charge is right,
Will boxing take a mortal shot and will the fight game fall
As treachery and fraud, unmasked, astonish one and all?
I think it won’t. This fight of all the century will stand.
The boxers and promoters almost certainly will land
Upon their well-heeled feet. The only losers will be blokes
Who bought the pay-per-view or ringside seats, and other folks
Who feast upon the ballyhoo and swallow up the swill,
As suckers have done always and as suckers always will.
The Fight of All The Century? The Bout For All The Bread?
We’re prob’ly doomed to hear that song ‘til boxing’s finally dead.