Column: Mayweather-Pacquiao nothing more than an epic scam

We've been told this is one of the greatest sporting events of all time.

Maybe five to 10 years ago, but not now.

Floyd Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao is a matchup of two fighters past their prime looking to make one last massive score, assuming 3 million or so takers come along for the ride at a hundred bucks a pop on pay-per-view.

Epic?

Only in the sense that it might be the last hurrah for a once-great sport.

Promoter Bob Arum and his minions will try to tell you otherwise.

''It's a credit to the sport of boxing that we've been able to put on such an event,'' Arum said with a straight face.

Spoken like someone who'll be pulling off his own version of ''Ocean's Eleven'' Saturday night in Las Vegas, though this heist is completely legal and comes with an even bigger payoff - though not for boxing itself.

If the fight had happened when it should have, then we'd have seen two of the greatest boxers of this generation in the prime of their careers. That sort of bout could've pushed the sport forward, helped to lift it back up from the abyss it has languished in since the self-destruction of Mike Tyson.

Not this watered-down version, no matter how much they try to persuade us otherwise.

''It's been a long road. But we're here now,'' Mayweather said. ''Everything is about timing. We couldn't choose a better time.''

No better time for the fighters, because it's not a good time for me and you.

With both fighters winding down their careers - Mayweather is 38, Pacquiao 36 - the two acrimonious sides finally came together to milk their cash cows totally dry.

With that, we pause for a brief infomercial.

''This is a fight that the world can't miss,'' Mayweather said. ''This is an unbelievable matchup. An action-packed fight.''

Now, back to reality, which provides nary a clue of this fight coming anywhere close to living up to the hype.

Over the last eight years, Mayweather (47-0) has been thoroughly unimpressive while winning just two of his 10 fights via knockouts. One of his victories during that span was by split-decision, two others by majority decision. He's a defensive specialist whose game plan will be to slickly dodge most of Pacquiao's once-fearsome punches, while delivering just enough blows himself to claim another decision.

Not that he should be overly concerned about Pacquiao's power. The Filipino fighter (57-5-2) has looked rather ordinary while losing two of his last five fights.

Granted, one of those defeats was a joke of a decision in favor of Timothy Bradley. But the other was a brutal KO at the hands of Juan Manuel Marquez, who delivered a right that left Pac Man sprawled face-first on the canvas, out cold. In fact, Pacquiao has gone more than five years without knocking anyone out, taking his last seven wins by decision.

The Vegas odds makers fully expect this bout to go to the scorecards.

R.J. Bell, a betting analyst who runs the Pregame.com website, set the over-under in the 12-round bout at 11.5 - in other words, will it last beyond the midway point of the final round. Bell reported Friday that bets were running nearly 3-to-1 in favor of the fighters making it to the final 90 seconds, with the odds of Mayweather scoring a knockout at a staggering 8-1. Pacquiao was the clear underdog in the fight but was given a slightly better chance of ending it early, his odds of scoring a knockout set at 5-1.

Chances are, these guys will dance around the ring for 36 minutes, Mayweather piling up the points while an increasingly desperate Pacquiao goes for a Hail Mary of a punch. There figures to be more action on the ''Food Network'' - and it won't cost you $99.95.

Still not convinced?

Well, if you decide to play along with this charade, here's what you can expect when it's over: The fighters will come together for a hug, finally say some nice things about each other, then try to persuade us that it really was a great fight, maybe even one worthy of a rematch.

One last PR push before everyone heads to the bank to cash their obscene paychecks.

Then we can finish off the burial of a sport that gave us Johnson and Louis, Ali and Frazier, Leonard and Hagler.

Not epic at all.

Just a sad ending.

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Paul Newberry is a national writer for The Associated Press. Write to him at pnewberry(at)ap.org or at www.twitter.com/pnewberry1963