Will there be fallout from the Mayweather-Ortiz debacle?

SACRAMENTO, California—And the bitching continues.
People I know who shelled out $59.95 to watch Floyd Mayweather Jr. score a fluke win over Victor Ortiz on pay-per-view last Saturday night bitched about the fight the next day and will bitch about it this week and the next.
The WBC welterweight bout at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas ended in bizarre fashion after Mayweather sent the defending champ, who let his guard down, thudding to the canvas near the end of the fourth round.
Just before he was knocked out, Ortiz intentionally head-butted Mayweather. Ortiz appeared to be apologizing and looking at referee Joe Cortez when Mayweather unleashed a left hook and a hard right.
“I will never buy pay-per-view again,” fumed my brother in law Manny Gonzaga, who corralled a few friends to his house for the ring rumpus and its unexpected ending.
“The fight was scripted,” said Rey Ramos, a part of another TV klatch on fight night. “It seemed like Ortiz wanted a short fight so he won’t get bloodied for his $2.5 million payday.”
“Another boring Mayweather fight. Thank God I was not suckered into that pay-per-view deal,” said my kumpadre Willie Hernandez, known for hosting PPV parties.
“Boxing’s a sham,” my fellow Novo Ecijano Jose de la Fuente shrieked at the other end of the phone line, nearly shattering my eardrums. “I’d stick to the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) which offers a thrill-a-minute and don’t lull you to sleep like boxing.”
“A lot of money was riding on an early outcome to the bout,” said my Las Vegas-based chum Joe Jimeno. “Floyd pounced at the chance to end it early.”
A voice in the wilderness was that of my horsetrack buddie, John White who said: “Ortiz started it and Floyd just finished it.”
I’ve heard that sort of bellyaching before. PPV subscribers I know always feel they did not get their money’s worth, but guess what? The sticker shock notwithstanding, they will likely buy again when the next big bout comes around.
But will the potshots at boxing hold till the next PPV offering, a.k.a. Pacquiao-Marquez III on Nov. 12?
One sports authority thinks so.
“The boos on boxing rang into the night (of the Mayweather-Ortiz bout) and may not stop for months to come,” writes columnist Bill Dwyre of the Los Angeles Times.
Dwyre, the former long-time LA Times sports editor said the Sept. 17 bout was “more freak show than a sporting event.”
Then he draws the line between boxing and UFC bouts.
“Boxing bouts are not always like this,” says the columnist “But this sort of thing makes ultimate fighting look like a tea party.”
Although boxing thrives in Mexico, the Philippines and other Latin-laced countries, it is common knowledge that the sport has faded in the United States through the years, eclipsed by no-holds-barred ultimate fighting, and vanished to small audiences on pay television.
If at all, will PPV subscribers get buyer’s remorse again or will the medium suffer generally, period—if a rematch of Saturday’s strange fight happens?
“The smell of a rematch is all over this one. The sales pitch is clear: Saturday’s fight didn’t really show what both can do, over an entire fight,” Dwyre wrote. “How it ended leaves questions. And those questions can only be answered if we do it again. Golly, let’s see if we can get people to pay for this TWICE!”
What about the fallout on upcoming PPV events? Without mentioning Pacquiao-Marquez III, Dwyre wrote that Mayweather-Ortiz “may, however give fans great pause.”
“They will be less interested in what was legal, as they are at what looked horrific—on both ends. Boxing made a lot of money Saturday night and may have lost a lot of friends and future customers. If you were a casual fan, maybe even paid the outrageous $59.95 PPV fee, you left with a bad taste in your mouth.”