By Norm Frauenheim-
The canvas and ropes will be the same. So will the arena. Only a couple of ounces will separate the gloves. Two events within three weeks look an awful lot a like. But they aren’t.
In fact, they couldn’t be more different. Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s TKO of mixed-martial artist Conor McGregor on Aug. 26 at Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena and the looming Gennady Golovkin-Canelo Alvarez middleweight fight in the same building on Sept. 16 are separated by differing perceptions of the same concept.
Legacy.
It’s an overused word these days. Yet, it’s always there. But what exactly is a legacy? Turns out, it’s exactly in the eye of beholder.
For Mayweather-McGregor, legacy means money. The bigger the money, the bigger the legacy. Mayweather and McGregor made GDP-like sums.
For Golovkin-Canelo, the fight is more for their place in history. Mayweather has enough money to buy his piece of history, securing a predictable victory that allowed him to surpass Rocky Marciano with a 50-0 record against a novice boxer.
Golovkin and Canelo have different takes, even between themselves about legacy and what it means. For Canelo, it’s Mexican history and a chance to perhaps fight his way to a spot alongside Julio Cesar Chavez. For GGG, it’s about the middleweights and his fight to be recognized alongside the division’s iconic names.
They’ll make plenty of money, yet probably only a fraction of what Mayweather and McGregor did. But Mayweather-McGregor was, first and foremost, about money. Their event accented the Prize in prizefighting.
For Canelo-GGG, the accent is on the Fighting. Amid all the talk of pay-per-view records that could double or triple Mayweather’s $100-million guarantee, that sounds almost quaint. But it’s a welcome kind of quaint, comforting from at least this perspective.
“I want to win this fight because maybe for me this win will be like a history fight, like (Sugar Ray) Leonard vs. (Mavin) Hagler,’’ Golovkin said Wednesday during a conference call.
Golovkin went on to talk about the great names in the division and some of their own accomplishments. He is about to make a 19th successive defense of his middleweight title. He’s within one defense of matching the 20 straight by Bernard Hopkins, who is a Golden Boy executive in the company that promotes Canelo.
“Right off the top, the interest for me is it’s a huge fight,’’ GGG said. “The story — in the middleweight division, it’s a long story. I don’t know, I remember a lot of great champions, like Carlos Monzon, Sugar Ray Leonard, Marvin Hagler, Bernard Hopkins. Right now, I think new stories, new times for us. So many stories are huge in the middleweight division. To be a champion is huge.’’
There was a time when Mayweather would hear some of those names and argue that he was better than any of them. Out of that argument, he created TBE, The Best Ever, which became another commodity, another way to sell caps and T-shirts. From the man who calls himself Money, it is always about how much he made and less about whom he beat. On one level, he is TBE, as in The Biggest Earner ever.
For GGG, however, the sense is that he wants to be remembered for whom he beat in a career that will put him alongside a gallery of names all worthy of some TBE consideration
“I respect boxing,” GGG said. “If you respect boxing like me, watch my fight.’’
It sounds like a good investment in an old craft respected more for what the fighters did than what they earned.
