Matthew d'Ancona: The $300m bout that proves showbusiness has eaten sport

Late on Saturday night, Las Vegas will be the scene of one of the most keenly anticipated and lucrative sporting events in history. Into the ring will step Floyd Mayweather, hoping to beat Rocky Marciano’s record of 49 victories and no defeats, and to secure his place in the pantheon of boxing gods.

His opponent in this super welterweight contest will be Conor McGregor, reigning UFC lightweight champion, and the greatest star yet to emerge from the mixed martial arts octagon. The twist is that McGregor, for all his pugilistic triumphs, has never fought a professional boxing match. Not one.

The sheer scale of the undertaking is breathtaking. As many as 50 million Americans are expected to watch the bout, from which Mayweather is set to earn more than $200 million and McGregor around $100 million. Cinemas all over the UK are streaming the fight live for those not satisfied by pay-per-view at home. What was initially written off as a freak show has become the focus of global fascination.

That the contest is going ahead at all is largely a tribute to the 29-year-old Irishman’s ferocity and panache, the power of social media to signal audience demand for an ostensibly outlandish bout and the astonishing rise of the UFC.

When the “Ultimate Fighting Championship” was launched in 1993, it was widely regarded as little more than bar brawling with referees, barely a sport at all. Since then, it has become a mighty global business, its parent company sold last year to William Morris Endeavour for $4 billion.

Today, the UFC’s champions, like McGregor, are formidable athletes who combine epic fitness with mastery of multiple martial arts that involve both kicking and punching (such as muay thai) and grappling on the canvas (principally jujitsu). For my teen sons and their generation, it is the sport of the future.

On Saturday, of course, McGregor will only be able to use his fists, which is why, according to conventional criteria, he stands little chance. Mayweather, a five-division world champion, is a defensive fighter of genius who outfoxes and frustrates his opponents into eventual defeat. McGregor is used to five rounds rather than 12, and to 4oz rather than 10oz gloves (the Nevada State Athletic Commission has approved a compromise weight of 8oz). The joke is that the UFC champion thinks that the Marquess of Queensberry is a pub.

That said, Mayweather is 11 years older than his opponent and is emerging from a 23-month retirement to face the southpaw pretender from Crumlin, Dublin. Anyone who doubts that McGregor can win should watch his 13-second demolition of the hitherto-undefeated Jose Aldo in 2015 to win the UFC featherweight title. If just one of those sledgehammer left hooks connects with Mayweather’s jaw, the bookies will have a very expensive night.

McGregor also has the spirit of the age in his corner. There is, of course, nothing new in sportsmen crossing over from one discipline to another. Sammy Byrd had a successful career as a New York Yankee before leaving baseball in 1939, becoming a golfer and winning six PGA championships. The Russian Lev Yashin was one of the greatest goalkeepers of all time, but also an international ice hockey player. Ian Botham played football for Yeovil Town and Scunthorpe United.

Sport has had its fair share of stunts, too. In 1971, Muhammad Ali almost fought the 7ft 1in basketball superstar, Wilt Chamberlain: a match that would have demeaned the sweet science of boxing. Billie Jean King’s defeat of Bobby Riggs in the “Battle of the Sexes” in 1973 was a blow for feminism, but not for the dignity of tennis.

Yet McGregor-Mayweather is different, because the times are different. In the first place, it continues the annexation by entertainment of everything else. There is nothing new, of course, in the convergence of sport and showbusiness. But the latter now threatens to swallow up the former whole, as it has so much else.

If a reality TV star can become President, why shouldn’t a mixed martial artist have a crack at one of the greatest boxers of all time? We live in an age in which novelty trumps credentials, and experts are distrusted. McGregor’s lack of experience in the boxing ring is no longer an obstacle. It is the whole point of the exercise.

If the new populist age has a dominant principle, it is that the categories, rules, and arbitrary decisions of élites are phoney. In this confrontation, Mayweather represents orthodoxy, received wisdom, professional boundaries.

In the other corner, McGregor stands for defiance of all that. He is the underdog who demands: why shouldn’t I? Why can’t I have what I want? Who made up this stupid rigged system? Before his UFC career began, he was one of the archetypal “left-behind”, scraping by on €188 a week in benefits. He has named his new yacht “The 188”.

A decade ago, such a fight would not have been taken seriously. In fact, it would never have happened. But we live in an age of extreme volatility, of upsets, plot twists and abrasive uncertainty. If the pundits were wrong about Brexit, Hillary Clinton, and Jeremy Corbyn, why should they be right about a boxing match in which a single, perfectly aimed blow could make a mockery of prediction?

This is not sport as traditionally understood, but a wild excursion into hyper-reality. It is another sign that the old rules are melting all around us. The purist within me says that it is an insult to the art and graft of boxing, a digital fairground attraction masquerading as a serious contest. But why be hypocritical? The truth is, I’ll be watching with bated breath.