Your weekly random thoughts …
• If
Floyd Mayweather Jr. is No. 1 on the pound-for-pound list, does that make his massive 7-foot, 441-pound wrestling rival,
The Big Show, No. 1 on the ton-for-ton list? I think next time out, Mayweather ought to wrestle
Bionic Bigfoot. And, by the way, for anyone who actually believes that Mayweather made the $20 million that he and WWE boss
Vince McMahon say he did for his WrestleMania XXIV participation, I have some farmland in Manhattan to sell you.
That aside, I found WrestleMania very entertaining besides just Mayweather's match. One thing that I also noticed watching my first wrestling pay-per-view in probably 15 years was the incredible production the WWE puts on with everything from massive amounts of pyro to the music to the constant energy. Seems to me that HBO and Showtime, as well as most promoters, could learn a lesson or two from the WWE (and also the UFC) when it comes to improving the presentation of boxing events both on television and in the arena. There's a reason almost 75,000 people turned out for a scripted event such as WrestleMania -- because it was non-stop fun. Go to even the biggest boxing event and sometimes the arena feels like morgue during undercard bouts, often because the fights are total mismatches. Top Rank has made great strides in its presentation of events, using more video and music lately, but other promoters and the networks really need to perk things up to bring more energy to boxing shows.
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Dan Rafael
