What's Floyd thinking & 5 Reasons Why The World Awaits 2 will break all PPV records

Floyd pretty much will only fight superfights (or close to it) now. Fighting people like Margarito, Cintron, and others will do absolutely nothing for his legacy. People in the buildup to those fights will say that Floyd is too small and will get beat, but if he wins, those same people will poke holes in his win saying that he couldn't go toe to toe with those bigger guys and had to box effectively to win, or that the fight was boring, or that those fighters like Margarito were big but not skilled enough to beat him anyway. Floyd is in a lose-lose situation with any opponent other than Miguel Cotto because people won't give him credit for a win, those aren't big money fights, and if he actually loses, then he loses.

Miguel Cotto is the only fight in boxing that Mayweather is probably interested in. Floyd is no idiot and he knows that time is money. If Ricky Hatton & Floyd fought after Floyd beat Gatti in 2005 when everyone originally wanted that fight, that fight wouldn't have been anywhere near the success that it was in winter 2007, it would have been premature. You have to build a superfight. Cotto-Mayweather now is NOT what it would be in the summer of 2009. That's simple common sense. Cotto needs a couple more PPVs under his belt, he needs to establish his name a bit more, and he needs to pick up one more belt. This way, by 2009, the fight will be even more wanted by even more people. I could even see most people in boxing claiming that Cotto is the "real" welterweight champion in the massive buildup to the fight in 2009. Right now, that isn't the case. When you fight at the top level like Floyd or any other star fighter, fear of any other fighter is pretty much non-existent. These are guys that have paid their dues to get where they are at and anyone that believes they are scared or ducking a fighter, just doesn't understand business or boxing. So until Mayweather-Cotto in 2009, Floyd's gonna take the biggest money option and fight ODLH.

Why in the hell would he do that? Oscar is still much bigger than him, Oscar actually almost won, and there's no way the fight does more PPV than the first. Right? Wrong. The World Awaits 2 will break the The World Awaits PPV record. Here are the five reasons will I think that will happen.

5. Oscar De La Hoya Drag Queen Pictures - It sounds stupid but hear me out. The way us Americans are these days is really interesting/pathetic if you think about it. Any scandal, any unfortunate situation that a celebrity goes through, only fuels their celebrity. Could you imagine if SRL was caught in 1970 in pictures like those? All of his endorsements would be gone, he'd be ridiculed by boxing purists and mainstream fans. But in today's scandal-obsessed society, ODLH only became a bigger celebrity. Instead of Oscar's regular fanbase being the only people that knew Oscar, now you have the ten of millions of people that frequent sites like TMZ and PerezHilton, that also know Oscar now. Scandal has essentially increased the number of people that know Oscar and might possibly purchase the fight. It sounds crazy but that's the world we live in. There's no such thing as bad publicity.

4. The First Fight Was Good Enough - If the first fight was absolutely horrible then maybe I could understand why this fight would not attract any new viewers but the first fight was actually decent. It was a chess match but the tension of the fight kept me interested all 12 rounds. Floyd was quick, fast, and accurate, and ODLH was bigger, stronger, and determined. It was a good fight that ended in a split decision and quite honestly could have went either way. It was much better than ODLH-Trinidad. It was good enough to where most boxing fans will pretty much pay to see it again (including me). Mainstream fans don't purchase a fight off of performance, they purchase off of the names involved. And nobody's names are bigger in boxing than ODLH and Floyd's. Leading to my next point...

3. Floyd Mayweather's Recent Celebrity Appearances - The World Awaits made Floyd a star, and the Hatton fight solidfied that he can sell PPV in America without a really known opponent (850,000 is especially strong considering that only Holyfield, Tyson, and ODLH fights have sold more). This coupled with the fact he's been on Dancing With the Stars, he's going to be fighting at Wrestlemania, his appearances at the NBA All-Star Weekend, his probable upcoming celeb appearances. Its all just raising his profile. We all know Floyd loves a little "plublicity". Hahaha, dumbass.

2. Floyd's Exciting TKO Victory Over Ricky Hatton - People tend to only remember your last performance and Floyd's was probably his most satisfying and exciting fight. Both Floyd and Hatton were undefeated and not only did Floyd beat Hatton, he K Hatton TFO. The image of Floyd screaming to the rafters, standing on the ropes with his arms up as Hatton lay on the ground with the crowd going crazy amid utter disbelief and shock, was probably one of the best boxing moments of 2008. It was memorable and will only help the fight sell because Floyd will probably claim that he's gonna stop ODLH this time just like he did Hatton. I can already envision the 24/7 series.

1. Nationalism - This fight will be extremely close to the presidential election. And while the fight will have to compete against struggling American economy, the NFL, and the final weeks of baseball. Nothing is more patrotic than two fairly young, American born, American bred, celebrity, boxing superstars, fighting each other. This fight is gonna be a monster. And even though I've bitched for months about this crap happening, I'm definitely gonna tune in.

That was a well thought out, and well presented post. I gave you some rep.

However, I disagree with almost everything you said.

First off, big fights are not was improve your legacy. It makes you famous for a while, but fame has a very short life span.

Legacy is built on quality opposition and quality fights. If you noticed, Hatton - Mayweather did more for PBF than DLH - Mayweather ever did, if we talk about legacy.

DLH - Mayweather 2 will do nothing for Floyd other than make him more famouse to the general public. Legacy wise, it means nothing.

And it won't be a success because the first fight, even though it was a decent fight, was no where near a rematch worthy fight. DLH is a smart man and he made a fight where everyone will be able to watch him beatup a smaller man for free and he will look good. This will help him sell. But it won't be enough.

How are they going to sell it when everything thay said about the first fight turned out to be BS. People are not that stupid.

I don't agree with everything, but you are dead on about it being smart to let Hatton/Mayweather build up and he will probably do the same with Cotto. All Cotto needs to do is keep winning, and it will happen in 2009. Then it will be a much bigger fight than it would be now, and I'm on record that Cotto is the only fighter who has a real claim to fight Floyd.

Thing is while its good to build a superfight, at the same time the shine was taken off it a bit when Hatton struggled so badly at 147 against Collazo. We have to hope that Cotto doesn't lose/look bad in the time before a Mayweather fight.

And I really have a hard time agreeing with the idea that somehow nationalism is gonna play a role in building this fight up. Even though ODLH is popular, American's just don't care enough about boxing to get all patriotic about it. Especially considering its two Americans fighting each other, it'd be better if there was a foreign "enemy" type against a popular young american fighter (to some people preferably that guy would be white). Like say Anthony Mundine was a well known P4P type guy who signed to fight a popular P4P American fighter and the fight was in 2001 after Mundine said some things about America in the wake of 9/11. Now that might bring out nationalism and patriotism. But Oscar De La Hoya fighting Floyd Mayweather? Not sure why that would.

Great post albsur, as usual.

However, I disagree that this fight will break PPV records. It will do extremely well, but I don't see it doing 2.4 million. I think it does somewhere between 1.5-2 million.

I agree with sweet pea

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Originally Posted by The Rookie Fan

That was a well thought out, and well presented post. I gave you some rep.

However, I disagree with almost everything you said.

First off, big fights are not was improve your legacy. It makes you famous for a while, but fame has a very short life span.

Legacy is built on quality opposition and quality fights. If you noticed, Hatton - Mayweather did more for PBF than DLH - Mayweather ever did, if we talk about legacy.

DLH - Mayweather 2 will do nothing for Floyd other than make him more famouse to the general public. Legacy wise, it means nothing.

And it won't be a success because the first fight, even though it was a decent fight, was no where near a rematch worthy fight. DLH is a smart man and he made a fight where everyone will be able to watch him beatup a smaller man for free and he will look good. This will help him sell. But it won't be enough.

How are they going to sell it when everything thay said about the first fight turned out to be BS. People are not that stupid.

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It's funny but I disagree with almost everything you say ;)

First off beating Hatton didn't do more for Floyd's legacy than beating Oscar not even close. Beating Oscar is what people will remember Floyd for in 20 years time not Ricky Hatton.

The reason that Floyd got so much praise following the Hatton fight is because he knocked Ricky out. It will be remembered in much the same way as say Hagler's destruction of Alan Minter, whereas had Floyd knocked Oscar out it would have been fucking huge, like Hagler Hearns.

You say that legacy is built on quality opposition and quality fights, and I agree. But how can you possibly even begin to say that Oscar De La Hoya is not quality opposition :confused:

Oscar's pedigree is immense a world champion in 6 weight classes. There's no bigger name out there in the world of boxing for Floyd to fight.

Beating a guy like Cotto, Williams, Cintron, Margarito etc does nothing for Floyd's legacy.

Do you still want him to face Paul Williams now he's been exposed by Carlos Quintana?

All those clamouring for a Margarito fight bailed out when he lost to Williams and all those clamouring for a Hatton fight post rationalised that it wasn't a brave move in retrospect seeing as Ricky was overratted and a blown up light welter.

What victories is Lennox Lewis most remembered for? Of course its his wins over Holyfield and Tyson. Were they his toughest opp? No but they are the ones that matter for his legacy.

Albsur2006 is completely correct in his posting, Floyd is doing the correct thing. Fighting a first ballot Hall of Famer for millions and millions of dollars in another huge mega event that will likely gross the most PPV buys ever. He would be a mug to pass that up.

Meanwhile Cotto will improve his own star with wins over hopefully the likes of Mayorga, Margarito, Cintron or Williams and prove his pedigree as a genuine p4p superstar.

Once he has achieved that then the stage will be set for Mayweather Cotto.

In 2009 Cotto, providing he keeps winning will be a far bigger draw than he his now. A fight with Mayweather then will be huge.

In the meantime I'm more than happy to see Floyd in with Oscar again.

of course this will smash all records , one being that its a status thing, not only will us as boxing fans (the suckers who cant turn away from a ppv even if we know its going to suck) but the casual sports fans will buy it out of the media hype. and their going to play up the close split decision in the first fight which oscar could have won but didnt because it would not have been a smart business move such as taking a dive against hopkins to build up hopkins who he signed