Mayweather-Mosley: Dementia Promotionica

Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer may have taken a few too many to the chin.

Now, I understand the need for those in the promotion business to hype and sell, but 4 million certainly won’t be buying the Floyd Mayweather-Sugar Shane Mosley match tonight on pay-per-view. That’s what the former UBS executive said in pushing the May Day fight (actually night) during the final press conference for the bout from the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

“I say that we’re going to break records. Not to only break three million homes, my goal is to break four million homes,” said Schaefer. “When you have corporate America behind you, when you have HBO 24/7, it is possible.”

Sure. At $54.95 for the card? Without a Latino rooting interest? Without Schaefer’s boss Oscar De La Hoya in the ring?

The tale of the tape shows that the Cinco De Maya bout in 2007 between the Pretty Boy and Golden Boy (no Chris Albrecht wasn’t on the under card) set the PPV pace with 2.45 million buys and $134.4 million in revenue.

Don’t get me wrong. I hope Mayweather-Mosley captures the fancy of fight fans everywhere and HBO PPV rings up big buy numbers in what, as colleague and boxing aficionado Tom Umstead points out, is — at this juncture – the only big PPV fight on the docket for 2010.

Unless of course, Mayweather wins and then he and Manny Pacquiao can get past their personal and testing differences to produce a true megafight, perhaps in November.

A far safer bet: Mayweather-Mosley isn’t going to dance before that many stars and ring up 63% more buys than Mayweather-De La Hoya.

I’m pretty Schaefer isn’t afflicted with dementia pugilistica. However, I fear he may be suffering from the advanced stages of the not-so-rare disorder known as dementia promotionica.