As much as I fight it, Floyd Mayweather’s sure to make this non-event a must-see

Who would win a fight between a snake and a mongoose? A lion and a tiger? A robot and a dinosaur? Rocky Balboa and Maximus from Gladiator?

And here’s a real snorter. What would happen if a retired boxer fought an active Mixed Martial Arts fighter in a Queensberry Rules bout with a levelling handicap on both men: the boxer being 40 years old and the MMA fighter being, well, an MMA fighter? It sounds like a difficult question, but the answer is simple: everyone gets rich.

Floyd Mayweather was in London on the weekend, supporting his exciting young protege, the 22-year old Baltimore super-featherweight Gervonta Davis, who stopped Liam Walsh in three rounds and thereby completed the first of what should be many defences of his IBF world title.

Davis looked superb: blending the defensive nous of a young Mayweather with huge punch power delivered from a bullocking upper body in a manner that brings to mind Mike Tyson at the same age.

He creamed Walsh — a good fighter and Commonwealth champion — with his first serious attack and the referee rightly stopped the match to spare the Mancunian serious injury.

Yet, Davis will need a good few years before he is the biggest beast in the Mayweather Promotions stable, because right now that remains the man himself; retired but one win short of a historic 50-0 record and looking for the easiest and most lucrative way to get there.

To that end, Mayweather was talking on Friday in near-certain terms about going through with his long-hyped cross-code bout against the MMA’s Conor McGregor.

The kindest thing we can say about a fight between Mayweather and McGregor is that it makes a spectacle of a thought experiment. The fight itself is a non-event. It is pantomime. An irresistible farce with one immoveable object: to cash in on the public appetite for a freak show.

There is nothing wrong with that, per se. The market has no morality and if people want to watch Mayweather argue with a chippy Irishman for two months before paying the guts of £20 to see a terrible fight, then that is fine.

But here we come to the rub. Following Davis’ victory over Walsh, Mayweather gave a short interview in which he suggested that if and when the McGregor show is arranged, Davis will be fighting on the undercard, along with a Mayweather Promotions veteran, the super-middleweight champion Badou Jack.

In other words, they get you every time. Do I want to see Floyd play peekaboo with McSilly-B****** from the Punching Twister league? No. Do I want to see Davis take another step on his way up the super-featherweight ladder? You bet your bottom PPV buy I do.

On which basis I can already feel myself giving in, clicking the button and lining Mayweather’s pockets one last time. Hypocrisy or simple human weakness? I don’t know but either way, I’m not entirely happy about it.