Okay, this is Mediapost, so I'm taking extreme license to write a media story, which is really my take on the televised fistic opera called the pre-fight weigh-in. I am, specifically, watching the
weigh-in between Floyd Mayweather, jr. and Victor Ortiz. The fight, which is being promoted by Golden Boy, which represents Ortiz, and Mayweather Promotions, has gotten tremendous hype, and not just
from the 24/7 TV series on HBO, which televises the event Sept. 17. The promoters have included an unusual (for boxing) web campaign, TV, out of home and other elements. HBO, for its part, will also
run something like 3-hours of infomercial (or entertainment if you're a boxing fan) before the fight on Saturday night. And, as in the last time Mayweather fought, a deal with movie theaters puts the
fight on the big screen in tandem with a simultaneous prize fight between Saul Alvarez and Alfonso Gomez.
So I'm here watching this bit of theatrical nonsense at home, on YouTube when I
should be, I don't know, removing my air conditioner from the front window, or making Salisbury steak? It's saturday, shouldn't I be cementing my patio?
Here are my notes, life, as it happens:
No, I'm glued to the video, and the first thing I see is a Tecate girl (I think Tecate is sponsoring this one, and I know there are Corona girls, but I think these are from Tecate) gyrating stage
right as Michael Buffer announces the arrival of undefeated Floyd Mayweather. Why is she doing this? Is she selling insurance? I think this because her movements remind me of those TIF animations we
all hate that tout crappy auto loan policies where a person does the macarena over and over again.
Ortiz is alone on stage now, while Mayweather is, presumably, doffing his vestments behind a
phalanx of supporters. (As I'm watching this my daughter [whom, as her father I have failed completely because while other fathers are out coaching their kids' AYSO teams, or doing origami sculptures
of the human genome, I am on YouTube watching the weigh-in -- and it's a Saturday afternoon, mind you -- and] is lying on the couch watching an 80's sequel to "The Parent Trap.")
I've now put
on headphones so I can hear what's happening on the MGM Grand stage, which is packed with the respective posses of Mayweather and Ortiz. People are talking, gesticulating, grabbing eachother, threats
are hurled, but I can't quite hear it all. Headphones on, this is what I think I hear over the buzz of "The Parent Trap":
Someone on Ortiz side: "F----in' pound for pound!"
Someone else with Ortiz (at 2:55): "You gonna f----with us?"
Ortiz person (at 3:11): "This is the f---in' star right here!" (says this about six times)
(ring announcer) Michael Buffer:
The Champion is on the scales!! (not scale, "scales." Ok, how many scales are there? I see just one. Are there two, six?)
Someone (exactly 3:15 of the clip): "ASSHOLE!" (my first
thought: he is directing this at Buffer either for suggesting there are multiple scales or because any idiot can see that Ortiz is on the scales, or scale, so why does he need to say it?)
A
clear voice at 3:34: Please!! I'm using it!! Another voice at about 3:37: "He won't stop, He won't touch my handle!"
Mayweather makes his way to the scales, steps up. He's
chewing gum. Won't the gum put him over weight since since it looks like he's chewing a gigantic wad?
Voice at 4:19: I think it's Ortiz' trainer, holding up belt: "We'll be celebrating with
this one! We'll be celebrating with this one!" (What are they going to do with it? tie each other up and do jello shots?)
Then, a shocking announcement at about 4:37, same guy: "I'm goin'
back to Ventura! I'm goin' back to Ventura! I'm goin back to Ventura" (what? has Ortiz manager decided quit? Has he called it off? What does this mean?)
More Bufferisms, and now I'm
starting to think I'm hallucinating:
A voice: "ragtime"
Another voice: "That's what poppa did"
voice 5:08: either "And still..." or "I'm scared" not sure which.
Now at
5:20, ready for face-off, Ortiz up front, Mayweather somewhere else, perhaps in the dressing room.
Now, at 5:41, one of Mayweather's posse and someone from Ortiz group are yelling at each
other and I can swear it has to do with a lost tuba. I could swear I hear "It's my tuba." anything's possible in Mayweather land. Maybe Senior plans to enter the MGM playing a tuba as revenge for his
son having kicked him out of his gym (24/7 first episode.)
At 5:41: "Okay," an authoritative voice comes over loud, perhaps it's God or Tony Soprano. "Hey, yo yo, relax up there,
whattya doin?"
5:43: Golden Boy chief Richard Schaefer looks right at the camera and says, "Im trying' to calm then down!"
Then at 5:46 the most interesting moment of the weigh-in,
when Ortiz, still center stage and alone, does this weird Marcel Marceau routine, where he does a "ooh, things are getting scary" bit, and mimes teardrops rolling down his face. I'm now utterly
confused and intrigued.
5:51: Now things get ugly. Someone from Mayweather's group is now waving a white handkerchief in Ortiz' face, yelling, "Quitter, you a quitter!"
This is
beyond the pale. Ortiz walks up to the guy, who is now saying "white flag, white flag! You wave it, you wave it." Ortiz stands there, just stands, while one of his team prepares to restrain him, but
then Ortiz turns revealing the trademark smile. Is it forced? It doesn't look it. How is he controlling himself? I put myself in his position. I'm sure I would have gone berserk.
At 6:15,
while the crowd screams "Ortiz, Ortiz, Ortiz" the guy who apparently lost a tuba is now barking at the Ortiz side, his head making these jerky thrusting motions one sees among mating pigeons and
people trying to disgorge a piece of salami stuck in their esophagus. It's really unseemly, can't he learn not to move his head like that?
Finally at 6:38, after Ortiz grabs his belt from a
handler, poses again, and Buffer comes back on the mike to stir the audience to an even greater frenzy, Mayweather, right on cue, steps up to the scale.
And at about 6:42, there commences the
most atavistic face-off I have ever seen. It looks like footage from a nature documentary about the male-dominance rituals of warthogs. Ortiz is bearing his incisors. They are both kind of
rolling their foreheads together in a weirdly ritualistic way, as if they are doing a party game where two people try to support a soft-boiled egg without using their hands.
Finally, it's
over. I've watched it. Now I can go play frisbee with my daughter. Oh, wait, I don't have a frisbee.