I was at that weigh-in and was struck by just how many people had come to watch Canelo strip. The crowd doesn’t cheer as much as it makes jokes and takes iPhone photos of the old famous boxers who sometimes hang around these things.Ĭanelo last fought on the Floyd Mayweather vs. Then there are some staged photos as the two half-naked men stand nose-to-nose. When the boxers don’t make weight, they sometimes take off their underwear and step on the scale naked. The boxers walk up to the podium with their entourages, the boxers strip down to their underwear, the boxers make weight and then flex for the cameras. For those who have never been, nothing much exciting ever happens at a weigh-in. Approximately 3,000 people crammed into one narrow section of the MGM Grand Garden Arena, wildly cheering at every appearance of the Mexican flag. I knew I was picking the dog, but I wanted to have a ringside seat on the night Top Rank and Golden Boy finally went Deer Hunter on one another.Ĭanelo’s weigh-in provided the first clue that I had miscalculated somewhere along the way. Josesito fight because I wanted the following scene - me, alone on press row in a half-empty MGM Grand Garden Arena populated exclusively by bored teenagers from Mexico City and Guadalajaran narcos in Chicharito jerseys. Kang: When we first learned of boxing’s cannibal night, Rafe and I decided to both fly to Las Vegas, stay in the same hotel room, and go about our business as if we had been assigned completely separate stories. To capture the scene at boxing’s apocalypse turned bonanza, Grantland sent Jay Caspian Kang and Rafe Bartholomew to Las Vegas to cover Sergio Martinez v. None of those abuses are particularly new to the sport, but there was a feeling that Top Rank and Golden Boy - boxing’s two most powerful promotional companies - dropped a piano on the camel’s back when they crammed two major events in direct conflict with each other on the same night, both in Las Vegas, both aimed at the same Mexican and Mexican American fans who would be in town to celebrate Mexican Independence Day. The night when boxing finally crumbled under the weight of steroid suspensions, inexplicable judging fiascos, and self-serving promoters more interested in protecting their stars’ records than giving sports fans the matchups they’ve been waiting years to see. The night the sport shot itself in the groin. Saturday night was supposed to be the night boxing ate itself.
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