As you may recall, I posted here about the basis for Mayweather's decision, i.e. money that he would have been required to pay to the WBA, but, unlike Mr. Scotto, I did not address the more fundamental issue of how Mayweather's decision could change the face of boxing for the better. When I wrote my post, the PPV buy number was not in and so there was only speculation about how successful the fight was despite the fact that no belt was on the line.
It turns out that with approximately 1.4 million buys, the fight was very successful.
In his article, Mr. Scotto explains the problems with the "Alphabet Soup" of belts and addresses the reason for the proliferation of sanctioning bodies and belts as the result of "greed and corruption" that "took hold, due, in no small part, to most television executives knowing very little about boxing, making them pawns of a larger system rather easily." Mr. Scotto continues, "[t]he entire process became corrupted as rankings were manipulated by promoters, and more and more sanctioning bodies sprang up, all looking for a piece of the pie, while some promoters latched on to these new 'belts' as a way to promote almost any card as featuring a 'championship' fight, in the hopes of selling more tickets."
However, with Mayweather opting to forego challenging for Mosley's belt, Mr. Scotto recognizes as follows:
By refusing to pay the WBA for the right to fight for Mosley’s belt, Mayweather sent a very strong message to not only them, but to any fighter that is still paying those fees.
Mayweather and Mosley proved that if you put two fighters in the ring, who fans actually want to see fight, you can still do 77 million dollars in pay-per-view revenue, without any help from any sanctioning body, thank you very much.
Numbers don’t lie, and let’s face it, 77 million is a whole lot of numbers, most of them zeros.
The question now becomes, after seeing what happened, will the fighters who have fought their way into recognition also balk at paying a percentage of their purse to organizations that do nothing for them?
If they realize, like Mayweather did, that the system is so watered down that it makes all the belts meaningless, they just might.
Mr. Scotto concludes, optimistically, by noting that the net effect of Mayweather's path could lead to positive change in the sport, including more tournaments like the Showtime Super Six where a definitive champion is crowned and/or, overall, more competitive championship fights.
With his unwavering position with blood testing requirements in boxing and his apparent recognition that the belts and the sanctioning bodies are watered down and virtually meaningless, Mayweather may just be effecting the change the sport needs to come back to where it was in years passed.
Fight Lawyer
