What is Mayweather-McGregor?
We all agree it’s a pointless fight, but we’re still captivated by its existence. Is that good, bad or does it even matter?

It’s a fight, per se.
Two men, weighing approximately 154 pounds, will step into a ring on Aug. 26 and do their best (we think) to knock the other one on his ass in an officially sanctioned — but not totally understandable — boxing match.
Don’t forget, it’s very much a show.
Two men, with equally ridiculous and absurd egos built on over cliched male narratives — power, money, half-ass one liners and stupid social media posts— are trying to one-up each other with racists and homophobic epithets in the hopes that enough people will believe this is genuine vitriol and go all-in on the $100 entree (I’ll save you the suspense. It’s not). This fight feels like a poor man’s attempt at television provocation — no one does the “We’ll find out after the break!” better than Howie Mandel. Nice try though, Conor.
It’s content, too.
Two men, with big enough mouths to feed countless think pieces (this one included), gravitas longform stories and good-ole fashioned hot taking, have made for constant fodder in a less than desirable summer for #SportsContent. How can the media not go all in? It would be a disservice to the sports fan at large. Clicks away!
There are critics who argue that this fight is the culmination of American culture’s appetite in 2017 — but we’ve always had a taste for the ridiculous theatrics. Why do you think we still indulge ourselves in Tim Tebow’s “baseball quest?” It’s not limited to sports either, but that’s as far as I’ll drift into that realm.

Analytically speaking, McGregor has no chance. Mayweather is one of the greatest pound-for-pound fighters in history and is one of the most technically sound boxers we’ve ever seen.
Common-sense speaking, McGregor should be lucky to come out of this fight alive. The clutter of content has made us forget that Conor McGregor is not only going up against an all-time great, he’s also making his professional boxing debut. Sit back for a minute and think about that — it’s actually pretty bonkers.
But then again, what if? That’s what’s so tasty. It’s our natural inclination to let our minds drift, even with every ounce of reason telling us otherwise, into a realm where something so ridiculous as a McGregor knockout seems possible. Some would say that’s a flaw of human nature, others would call it its beauty.
Mayweather-McGregor just feels…something. Or at least some resemblance to an event that matters. Yet, it certainly doesn’t feel right or important either. There’s no title on the line. It’s literally just two imperfect humans boxing each other, and the reward is $100 million regardless of whether they spend 30 minutes or 30 seconds together in the ring.
But even then, it doesn’t feel completely irrelevant either. Is that because it matters, or because we’ve created a narrative that comforts our distaste for a $100 fight that won’t live up to the hype? Mayweather-McGregor seems more on par with a Sunday night Game of Thrones episode or an Oscars viewing party than a national sporting event like the Super Bowl. We’ll sit down, get hyped, have a few drinks and try to come up with the catchiest tweet that goes viral. But ultimately we’ll ask ourselves, “Was it really that great, or did Twitter just tell us it was?”

It also gives a convicted domestic violence abuser another ginormous payday. Mayweather, who has a disturbing record of violence against women but has never been suspended by any boxing governing body, continues to profit despite the fact that he’s never offered any contrition.
I would give anything to hear a reporter ask Mayweather the question, “How much of your $100 million earnings do you plan on donating to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence?”
McGregor isn’t a convicted felon, but his insensitivity to the racial slurs he’s uttered and the statements he’s made during his big kumbaya moments — like in this GQ profile where he says his technical gifts come from “the nutsack”— don’t make him out to be your mom’s favorite athlete either.
Mayweather-McGregor is a flawed fight built on flawed narratives that will underwhelm in every way possible. The entrance music will be subpar. The arena crowd will be more wine & cheese than bear knuckles (the irony of such spectacles). Mayweather won’t go for the killer punch. McGregor will hang by the ropes and look like a UFC fighter in a boxing match. The fight will probably go eight rounds and get called off early. Your bar tab will be way more than it deserves to be. At work on Monday, you’ll read headlines all about how this fight was a waste of time and money. You won’t like it, but you’ll probably agree with it. If you have a good soul, you’ll give us writers a few clicks too. God knows we could use them.

Yet, there will also be some satisfaction in knowing that you were simply there. Not literally, but you were part of the “social event,” meaning you weren’t the only person who bought into the stupidity of it all. Knowing that there was the slightest chance that you could be one of the millions of people to witness a McGregor victory will be worth the countless hours of hot takes and fodder. A few good tweets could make this whole thing decent too.
Mayweather-McGregor isn’t complex physics, but it feels like a Rorschach test. There will be no winners, just many sides to pick and choose from. Mayweather will technically get the W, but one side of the media will detest the validity of its merits (and rightfully so). McGregor will lay low for a few months and end up on a magazine spread wearing shiny jewelry that produces some buzzworthy headlines for us content creators. He may even get back in the Octagon too.
In the end, Mayweather-McGregor’s historical relevancy won’t be about the fight itself, but the fact that it even came into existence. In 20 years, after it makes its Internet rounds on the “Top 10” lists, there’s a slight chance that we may actually look back on this moment and say to ourselves, “Damn. How the hell did we consume that?”
If we deem this fight worthy of such a thought, then we’ll know what this fight was about.
