Twenty million dollars is a lot of money.
It's an amount that's been on many tongues lately. That's probably what WWE was banking on (pun intended) when they dangled it in front of Floyd Mayweather to get him to appear at WrestleMania. (I can't imagine it would be that hard to entice stars to appear at WrestleMania, but then what do I know.)
But the more I see of Floyd Mayweather, the more I think WWE has squandered its money.
For a company that has been downsizing recently, spending $20 Million on one person for one fight seems like an odd way economize. And then there are the WWE shareholders to answer to. How does one break that kind of news to investors?
There is also the practical side of things to consider. In the world of non-scripted sports, a fighter is only as good as his last fight. What if Mayweather loses his next fight? His stock will drop faster than you can say "has been."
Most of all, Mayweather brings nothing more than his name to the show. As we saw on Raw Monday night, he has no skill at all when it comes to public speaking, much less cutting a decent promo. (It makes you realize just how talented our favorite sports entertainers are, doesn't it?)
Monday night Jim Ross tried to interview Mayweather "via satellite," and The Champ reacted like J.R. was speaking a foreign language. Did anybody talk to this guy before they stuck a mic in his face? He couldn't answer the simplest questions, nor could he think on his feet. He's going to be on Raw next Monday, live and in person, and I'm dreading it already.
There will also be a weigh-in next Monday. Whatever for? The only purpose of that would be to emphasize the disparity in size: A ton and a half vs. a buck and a half. Yeah, yeah, I know, it's all about the publicity, but some publicity borders on the ridiculous.
There are any number of attention-grabbing things WWE could have done with $20 Million. For instance, they could have put it toward good works by making a high profile charitable donation.
Nah!
But since NASCAR's Carl Edwards was nice enough to give WWE some free publicity after his Sprint Cup win last Sunday by suggesting he could lend his title belt-style trophy to John Cena for WrestleMania, considerably less than $20M could put a dandy WrestleMania paint job on Edwards' race car next Sunday. Since Edwards usually runs up front, that would put a whole lot of eyes on a rolling, four-hour pay-per-view advertisement.
Just a thought.
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Thanks for reading and see ya next week.