This is another weekend where sport will dominate. It is one of those rare ones though, where our normal universal acceptance of any sport as being good for the soul will be tested on age grounds.
At around five o’clock on Sunday morning, Floyd Mayweather Junior and Conor McGregor will enter a ring in Las Vegas and raise the fever pitch of excitement among groups of young sports fans gathered around screens here in Dublin to boiling point.
Some will have watched Kerry and Mayo go toe to toe themselves in more traditional form earlier the previous day. Others will be staying up or getting up on Sunday to pack Croke Park for Dublin against Tyrone.
Not many will be getting up or staying up to take kids to play matches on Sunday morning but that’s where the age thing comes in.
Boxing is a very old school sport. From Gentleman Jack Dempsey to Mohammed Ali it has held a special place for sports fans down the decades. Most of the gnarled veterans who may have seen them in action or grown up on their stories will be tucked up asleep on Sunday morning.
For most boxing fans this really is a pure circus and not a particularly good one at that.
For the fans of McGregor though this is pure magic. He is already the best known Irish sports star on the planet. Regardless of whether you like that or not it is pretty undeniable.
The money that will transfer from individual pockets to the gold and ermine lined wallets of the two fighters on Sunday would make your head spin. It will be more than that generated by Irish Rugby, the GAA, the FAI and the whole of Irish sport this year.
And it could be for a fight that will last a minute or less.
And for young people, a minute is a lot longer than it seems. Long games are for old folk. Instant gratification is more important when you are young than a well-formed narrative. That’s not something which MMA or Conor McGregor has given birth to. It’s a story for the ages.
Wisdom dictates though that like any good show, this one should be long enough to satisfy the masses by having more than one of those minutes.
Mayweather is a very astute businessman. The more rounds the more advertising. The more advertising the more money, the more money… Well, what is there more important than money, at least in this world.
McGregor is also very astute. He has stepped over a line in terms of his comments and how they could be perceived as racist and been accused of any other manner of moral shortcomings but he has a capacity to inspire good in others as well, and like many larger than life characters, his is not a simple life to sum up for good or bad in a cartoon pastiche.
He is a double world champion in his sport but his sport is not boxing.
The Association of Ringside Practitioners, a body of boxing doctors have questioned why this fight of such mismatched skills in the ring could have been sanctioned.
Hopefully, their fears will be misplaced and both men will walk from the ring with their health.
In the eyes of the bookmakers, and this is in Vegas after all, McGregor is as short as 3/1 to win this. Wise counsel that knows both sports say there should be a zero on that but who knows. Let the games commence…
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