Over the last year or so there has been an unsettled relationship between the sport of boxing and the youtubers determined to play at it. Logan Paul is at the awkward center of it. After two mediocre exhibition fights with internet personality KSI, Paul has managed to snag himself a fight with the retired superstar and world richest athlete, Floyd “Money” Mayweather.
The Odds
Let’s just get this out of the way. Floyd Mayweather will win this fight the moment he chooses to. This is less of an opinion than a simple logical fact. I can’t even imagine a bookie taking odds on such a thing. Or who on earth would bet against Floyd, or what those astronomical odds look like.
Floyd could bet his entire billion on himself. It would pay out his money back plus a T-shirt that says “World’s Most Ethical Billionaire”. Floyd is here because he gets bored not punching people or being the center of attention. And the money of course.
Then on the horrifying flip side of the coin is a Logan Paul win. Which would pay out approximately the Gross domestic product of Russia and cause a global depression for everybody but Steve “the Logan Paul YOLOist” who would replace Jeff Bezos as the world’s richest man, While crashing Wall st. harder than Gamestop and Enron combined.
Does Logan Paul Have A Chance Against Floyd?
But let’s be honest the sheer madness of Logan Paul beating Floyd Mayweather would be worth the weight of all the Nazi gold in Switzerland. All Logan has is size. He’s 6 inches taller, around 30 lbs heavier. Boxing has weight classes for a reason, sure. Boxing also has rankings and championships for reason.
Logan Paul outweighing Floyd isn’t a good enough reason to favor him. Because he has a grand total of about 8 minutes in the ring as a Pro. For the same reason the dumb and gullible laid their money down on Conor McGregor in another strange super fight a few summers back.
The skill and speed gap was wide as the betting odds. Against a bigger, stronger man with an actual striking pedigree, Floyd would casually dominate The Irishman like Joe Pesci. It lasted 10 rounds because of Floyd’s analytical and cautious nature, especially exaggerated as he aged. The Floyd that fought Conor would have gone into the 4th round with split scorecards against a wet paper bag. That isn’t a knock on Floyd. This is a stylistic choice of an old man in a sport where men can and do die young.
Floyd in his old age, became a spoiler. Because early career hand issues gave him no choice. Those who saw him back when he was “Pretty Boy” Floyd recall a dynamic and unorthodox offensive force. For the most part he still had the amazing defense and counter punching game. He just also threw 60 punches a round and landed around half of them. He wasn’t gifted with power, but the sheer speed, accuracy and snap of his punches makes his opponents wary. Everyone he ever fought saw their punch output drop SIGNIFICANTLY.
You don’t need be a big or strong to break somebody’s nose. You just need a clean shot at it. Floyd hits hard enough to do that to anybody. Just ask the 7’ 300lb Big Show.
Logan Paul with his 8 minutes ring experience can’t and won’t stop him for obvious reasons. If somebody trained 4 months at your job, would you bet they could outwork you? This is a tech school student in with a master mechanic.
This is like if Luke Skywalker crashed his X-wing into the swamp and tried to kill Yoda on sight. This will be like every story you hear of some young kid deciding to talk trash to retired Michael Jordan. God help Logan Paul if Floyd took that personally.
The Integrity of Boxing
The boxing community certainly has been. The old school hardcore boxing fans have remained staunchly opposed to circus aspect of the careers of both men. Saying this hurts the integrity of the sport and only serves as a ludacris sideshow. Distracting people from the fact that the history is boxing is littered with deep corruption and quasi legality. Not to mention a healthy tradition of exhibition matches through out the ages.
Names like Joe Louis, Muhammad Ali, George Foreman and most recently Mike Tyson fought exhibitions toward the end or after their careers. To look through the complete history of the sport, there are too many similar examples to name. Half the reward for a successful boxing career is the straight cash of the fight purse and PPV. The other half is the ability to leverage their stardom to make some money after a hard career. One way is endorsements. The other is appearances. Floyd will treat this far more as an appearance than a fight.
Problem for Floyd is considering his criminal history and arrogance, all anybody wants to see him do is lose. Which at this point in his career with this level of competition, is about as likely us being hit by a meteor at exactly 2:45pm, yesterday.
I’m happy about having another few rounds of Floyd Mayweather technique to pick apart. Plus I get get to watch either Floyd Mayweather or more likely Logan Paul get punched in his smug face. Or maybe, just maybe, Michigan Icarus has pushed it one fight to far. There is some laughing destiny that could see Floyd fall to a youtuber with no experience to speak of. I’m not an unconditional believer.
It’s been too serious a year to sweat the details and logistics of such an insane match. We’ve already got plenty to overthink and complain about and do about. I look forward to being able to shut off the old worry box and sit down to watch a dumb fun fight with nothing on the line between exceedingly punchable people. So enjoy the circus, on those rare nights when it comes to town.
Theodore Lee is the editor of Caveman Circus. He strives for self-improvement in all areas of his life, except his candy consumption, where he remains a champion gummy worm enthusiast. When not writing about mindfulness or living in integrity, you can find him hiding giant bags of sour patch kids under the bed.