Mayweather vs Cotto: Lackluster Hype Is Bad News for Boxing

Are you ready for the biggest fight of the year?!?!?

No? Neither is the vast majority of the sporting world.

The largest fight of 2012 is less than a week away, and the hype for it has been weaker than LeBron James in the fourth quarter. The issue is that Cotto is a nice dude. There is no reason to hate him.

Mayweather, the ultimate promoter, knows this and is taking the “respect his abilities” angle, trying to justify why he selected him for this particular fight. The problem is, you can see right through it. You know he wanted Manny Pacquiao, and the politics of boxing got in the way for seemingly the 100^th time.

So Mayweather isn’t taking verbal jabs on Cotto, he’s justifying the fight. That’s not fun.

HBO’s 24/7 series, which is supposed to be the ultimate hype-machine for the bout considering they are the one’s selling the PPV, was not on par with some of their other productions. The lack of anger amongst the two was glaring and Money May even took to Twitter for an apology to fans:

"

I want to apologize to all my fans and viewers who watched 24/7 last night. I wasn't pleased with this weeks episode of 24/7.

— Floyd Mayweather (@FloydMayweather) April 29, 2012"

"

Me and my film team are providing Bentley Weiner with exciting content which she is not using.

— Floyd Mayweather (@FloydMayweather) April 29, 2012"

"

We really needed the producers from Mayweather-Hatton 24/7 to come back to HBO give the fans and viewers more excitement.

— Floyd Mayweather (@FloydMayweather) April 29, 2012"

The buzz is lacking and it’s a shame. Cotto is a terrific opponent that is essentially undefeated, just like Mayweather. One of his losses was because of illegal gloves by Antonio Margarito and the other was because of an abrupt upgrade in weight class.

He is a good knockout style boxer that is going to give Money May one heck of a fight. In fact, I think we has a better than average chance of actually winning the fight and shocking the boxing world.

Too bad the build up for it has been a joke. 

Follow Eric Ball on Twitter.