What is an exhibition match in the world of boxing? Years ago, some too many to count, an exhibition was a way for an up and comer or a let us say a ‘nobody’ to fight a champion boxer in the hopes that he would get taken seriously. But alas, fast forward to 2021 and we are so desperate to have people come together after the worldwide Pandemic that the likes of Floyd Mayweather took to the ring last night to fight Logan Paul.
Logan who? Yes that’s right. Logan Paul. Do not bother to spend too much time googling, because Logan Paul is none other than a famous internet personality. He got his fame from YouTube which started in 2013 with posting sketches he came up on Vine. Logan then moved to YouTube and created a channel as he continually posted “vlogs” which catapulted him to the most subscribed YouTuber yet.
Additionally, Paul has done some acting here or there but ever the man after a following on social media last night he fought Floyd Mayweather who even in retirement looks like he can still go toe to toe with anyone putting up a challenge. Of course, this was all a publicity stunt for which everyone was handsomely paid. Nice work if you can get it.
The real question everyone is, what does that say about our society? Has the lockdown through the pandemic taken us as a society to a place where a popular YouTuber will step into the ring with Floyd Mayweather? Obviously. But let us face a fact of reality, who would not? Besides maybe getting injured permanently or dying, if you paid most people $250,000 and ten percent (10%) of the pay-per-view earnings, they would get in the ring too. (wouldn’t you?)
What is even more disturbing is the fact that Mayweather claimed he expected to make between $50,000,000 and $100,000,000 just to get into the ring with what is basically an amateur fighter with no experience all to promote the fight to the world. Which is the real upsetting part ladies and gentlemen is the fact that Mayweather has been interviewed explaining the fact that he is getting paid to fight someone who is no competition to him and people who don’t have money to pay a mortgage after the pandemic are paying to watch this.
That brings us to the actual conclusion that our society, while advanced in many ways has come to a place of pure ridiculousness. Of course, not if you hung out at The Hard Rock Hotel this past weekend. If it isn’t cancel culture it is now watching a famous YouTuber prance around a boxing ring trying to not get pummeled into a coma by a former professional boxer that is, admittedly so, just in it for the money.
We here at the Ribotsky Institute are all for a professional athlete getting paid whatever the market rate is based on their experience and expertise, but that is for a sporting competition. It is quite another moral dilemma to have a YouTuber get into a ring with a former professional boxer just to make some money. It would not actually be so bad if he did not flaunt it all over the place. That is the actual offensive part that is somewhat classless.
The real crux of the matter here everyone, is that our society has gone so far beyond normal reality that we do not have a good moral compass anymore. Professional athletes make large sums of money for their talent but most of the time they do not run around social media and explain how much money they are making. We are so impressed with money and luxury items as a society that we often forget what is important. We forget that everything is not as it seems on social media because contrary to popular belief, Instagram is not real life.
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