“…At this point, everyone knows the match is a shameless spectacle. The winner is all but decided, the narratives already written, while we all just sit back and watch and enjoy. It is a lot closer to professional wrestling than either boxing or MMA, which explains why the MMA crowd has been eating it up with more fervor than the boxing folk. Not that there’s anything wrong with that; everyone has their shallow indulgences in life. Some can detail all the regional differences in the “Real Housewives” series, while others can detail all the storylines from Monday Night Raw. Tomato, tomotto.
Yet at the same time, the appeal of “The Money Fight” is undeniable: boxing’s biggest star vs. MMA’s biggest star. It has all the glitz of celebrity boxing, only with better technique and higher stakes. It’s gossipy nonsense, but the kind of gossipy nonsense that feels big and important, not unlike the 45th president’s Twitter feed. In a world where a reality TV star can become the most powerful man on the planet, it is perfectly congruous for a type of reality TV show to become the biggest sporting event on the planet…”
