• by Karl Greenberg , Staff Writer, May 8, 2015

Well, this will be fun in a sort of sado/masochistic way. Let's just say the general consensus on the reputation of professional sports this past week is probably along the lines of "This majestical roof fretted with golden fire—why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors." Speaking of which, it seems the only place where something isn’t rotten is Denmark. At least they've got a real, unblemished, Viking warrior of a hero in Mikkel Kessler, whose battles with Carl Froch will certainly go down as some of the great moments in sports.

But let's get back to this quintessence of dust: the (chortle, weep) "fight" of the century, and the much more interesting things that have happened since, including the upbraiding of Tom Brady, America's quarterback. 

As everyone knows, the big fight was a dud. Mayweather fought his usual brilliant defense, which is to say he fought like a man who just learned he has hemophilia. Pacquiao fought injured, which is to say not at all. Torn rotator cuff, we learned. Then things sailed into the realm of the surreal when two groups of gamblers sued Team Pacquiao for not disclosing the injury; class-action suits no less. As if gambling and boxing were service industries, like plumbing. 

Up in Boston, meanwhile, there's the sordid business with the deflated footballs. This is actually much worse for Brady than the shoulder injury business is for Pacman, to my thinking, and here's why: take a look at Wednesday's New York Post. It's a second-grade play on Brady's deflated balls. And, while the Post can be counted on to sink low enough to suck the silt out of a flounder's gills when the opportunity arises, the cover does pretty much get to the crux of how metaphorically castrating this whole thing is for Brady. In the short term, it will be more deleterious to his brand equity than if he'd been unveiled as one of the kick dancers in a drag revue. 

What will happen to his endorsements? Who knows. My guess is he'll pony up some emails and texts. He looked tense on TV at the “Flop of the Century” on Saturday night. But it may have been jet lag. He'd attended the Kentucky Derby earlier in the day, then hopped a jet for a quick jaunt to Vegas in time to see ... nothing much. 

I don't think Pacquiao, who has tons of endorsement deals, will be hurt in the long run by his performance and disclosure that he'd injured his shoulder before the fight. Hell, that might help him. He wasn’t making it up; he just had surgery. While the fight should have been postponed, you could argue that his advisors will take the flack more than he will, and that his reputation is too solid to change how people feel about him, especially how his fans feel about him, which borders on religious adulation, especially in his home country. You can blame him for not disclosing the injury, but you have to give him some props for having inflated cojones: it ain’t tennis; the dude risked a world of hurt by stepping up with an injury. Also, “I will listen to my advisors” is kind of his tagline (whether the advisor is Bob Arum, or, well, The Advisor). 

The big loser in sports this week is boxing. I wrote last week that, given the hype, the ticket prices, and the PPV ripoff, the organizers were potentially cutting off their noses to spite their faces should it wind up a dud. It was and they did. All of those people who thought, “Well, I'm not a boxing fan, but this is an historic event…” before shelling out will now happily go back to MMA and never watch another boxing match. No new fans for all of that promotional hype, just money for the promoters and a big check for Mayweather to flash. But hey, that's boxing.