Mayweather vs. McGregor Is a Victory for the Forces of Money

Yes, it's finally happened. Against all odds and against all reason and against possibly even nature, Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Conor McGregor are going to fight a boxing match against each other in Las Vegas in August. Yesterday word starting leaking out in the sporting press that something was in the air and then before you knew what was happening the fighters themselves were announcing the good news on Instagram, and in ways that will serve for future generations as proof of their personalities: McGregor, ever the mocker and worshipper at the altar of youth, posting a picture of himself next to a picture of Floyd Mayweather senior; Mayweather the Second, ever the businessman and mindful of his dual role as fighter and promoter, posting a poster for the event itself, with the name of his various money-making ventures at the top, as if this fight were just another in a long line of them stretching back 20 years.

Of course the long-awaited, much-anticipated, much-maligned, often-dismissed fight is nothing like any of the other fights Mayweather has been involved in. In fact, the fight, which will be fought at 154 pounds (perfect for McGregor, the reigning UFC champ at 155, but totally fine as well for Mayweather, who scored arguably the biggest victory of his career when he went up in weight in 2007 to take the light-middleweight belt from a much larger Oscar de la Hoya), is unprecedented in the long, glorious career of one of the best boxers of all time.

First of all, Mayweather is a 40-year-old man now, about to step in the ring with a man in the full flower and spring and glory of his youth, and time is indifferent to the arrogance and self-confidence of all men, and particularly cruel to evasive artists who, like Mayweather, have relied on their speed and quickness, of body, eye, and mind, to save them from danger. Add to this the fact that Mayweather will be coming back from a 23-month retirement to fight a man who's fought four times in that span, and you have a recipe, if not for disaster, at least for consideration, for thought, for perspective, and for doubt.

Then there's the fact that Conor McGregor is a mixed martial artist, not a boxer. On paper, of course, and likely in reality, such a situation would seem to be an advantage for Mayweather, since he and McGregor will be meeting in the boxing ring and not the cage and since Mayweather has been boxing since the day he was born. McGregor hasn't fought a boxing match in his life. But who's to say such a seeming disadvantage couldn't be turned in the Irishman's favor, that Mayweather is a genius at avoiding and countering the strikes of lifelong boxers because he's been fighting them his whole life, that McGregor, in his ignorance and inexperience, might not be capable (however unintentionally) of giving Mayweather looks he's never seen before, maybe just enough to give the mixed martial artist a fighting chance? Who's to say? Of course Floyd Mayweather is the superior boxing, but if he were smart McGregor would ignore everyone chattering in his ear about needing to find himself a good boxing coach and get a three-month crash course in the sweet science and instead just keep doing what he's been doing: boxing like a mixed martial artist. When cursed with inexperience but blessed with talent and confidence the best thing a hopeful can do when facing an artist is to run toward himself. A little bit of the unorthodox might be just enough to mess with the head of a boxing traditionalist as devoted as Floyd Mayweather.

Mainly, though, and here's the whole story behind this blessed and unholy union, Conor McGregor is the first man Floyd Mayweather has ever faced who is as trash-talking adept, self-obsessed, self-promotionally-focused, and money-consumed as he is. After all, it was the two men's mouths and promotional acumen that made this fight happen, not any sporting necessity or public demand. From the moment McGregor off-handedly mentioned boxing Mayweather during an interview on Conan O'Brien's talk show in 2015, a fight between the two men has evolved from a fantasy into a reality by the sheer force of will and creativity of two self-obsessed master showman who, after years of practice, had come to recognize just how to spin hypotheticals into gold. Mayweather slammed Mcgregor for being poor, McGregor lashed Mayweather for being old. McGregor mocked Mayweather for being scared, Mayweather dismissed McGregor as a nobody using Mayweather's name to promote his own. For two years this went on, a master-class in patience and self-promotion and the slow-burn cultivation of a can't-miss moneymaking opportunity by two poets of solipsism who understand that in the right hands demand can be created where there was no demand before.

And that is exactly what this fight is the manifestation of: not an athletic or cultural necessity but a sustained act of self-marketing. Forget boxing, forget MMA, forget sports and legacies and records and reputations. Forget it all. This fight is a triumph for the forces of money, the great god at whose feet both Mayweather and McGregor happily worship.