By Allan Fox: WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman fully supports the February 20th celebrity exhibition match between the 43-year-old retired former multiple division world champion Floyd Mayweather Jr and the popular YouTuber Logan Paul for their February 20th pay-per-view match.
Surprisingly, WBC president Sulaiman says the Mayweather vs. Paul exhibition match is “good for boxing,” but he doesn’t give his rationale for that opinion.
The price for the Mayweather-Logan exhibition match won’t be cheap at $69.99 if fans purchase the event beginning February 11th.
WBC president in favor of Mayweather vs. Paul
“This is going to be something good for boxing. This is going to bring millions of eyes to our sport. I appreciate Logan and Jake, they have worked hard. I will support Floyd v Logan 100%,” said WBC president Mauricio to the AK & Barak Show @SiriusXMBoxing.
With the high numbers of unemployment in the United States due to the pandemic, asking fans to pay that kind of money for what is arguably a money-grab to line the pockets of the already wealthy Mayweather and Logan Paul.
It’ll be a transfer of money from the have nots to the haves without much of any entertainment value.
The net effect could be to put off fans from purchasing future pay-per-view boxing events permanently. In other words, Mayweather vs. Logan Paul exhibition match could burn bridges with many fans, turning them away from the sport forever.
If the Mayweather exhibition match and undercard is highly entertaining, fans will want to come back, but we didn’t see that from Floyd’s last two events against MMA fighters Tenshin Nasukawa and Conor McGregor.
Those were mismatches and about as entertaining as watching someone workout on a heavy bag.
Logan has no chance of beating Mayweather, and that’s the basic problem. In Logan’s only professional fight, he was beaten by KSI last year in a six-round split decision defeat. Before that, Logan had no amateur career, and he was just a YouTube guy that had opened up his own channel and gained a following talking.
Will fans get value for their money?
For the fans that buy into the belief that the 200-pound Logan Paul can compete with Mayweather, they’ll point out that he’s 50-pounds heavier than the 150-lb Floyd.
The 25-year-old Paul is also 18 years younger than the 43-year-old Mayweather, which would mean something if he were a boxer and not a YouTuber.
It would be interesting if Mayweather launched a comeback and decided that he wanted to face IBF cruiserweight champion Mairis Briedis rather than Logan.
Boxing fans would like to see Mayweather take on a cruiserweight like Briedis, because at least with a fight like that, there would be a good chance of the contest being competitive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8COejLdl_w
Of course, Mayweather would likely be knocked out by Briedis, but it would give fans entertainment value for their money.