So this weekend we got our first taste of the “Legends only league.” The inaugural event’s big draw featured Mike Tyson vs Roy Jones Jr in an exhibition match. That’s why I purchased the pay per view, I didn’t even know there were other fights or musical performances.
I’ve seen many people say that this event was geared towards old heads who wanted to relieve a bit of the nostalgia of old. I’m not entirely sure if I agree with that or not, I just wanted to see a fight.
So let’s hash this thing out, both the good and the bad.
The Musical Performances.
First and foremost, I am a fan of hip hop and rap music. I have loved and listened to it throughout my entire life. However, I did not fork over $50 to watch some dudes I never heard of perform music.
If I ever want to watch an artist I don’t know, I’ll do that on my own on youtube or Spotify and it won’t cost me $50. It really bugged me that I paid $50 to walk away from various portions of the event that I simply didn’t care for. This is nothing against the artists, its just not what I signed up for.
The only artist performance I enjoyed was Snoop Dogg. During his musical performance I was engaged and enjoying it. I dig Wiz, but again, I can just watch him do “Black and yellow” on youtube anytime I feel like it without shelling over $50. I can appreciate one musical act. If it was only Snoop, that would have been perfect for me.
As a matter of fact, if it was only Wiz, I’d be okay with that. But several musical acts that I don’t know, doing several songs, meh, not interested. If that’s the way they’ll continue to do it, I’d like to know who the artists are in advance. If they don’t provide that information in advance, or reformat the event, then I will not pay for this again.
Commentary.
I think that the commentators did a fairly good job. I don’t have any major views on this. I will say this one thing though, please, please, please bring back Big Snoop Dogg as a full time commentator on there. My man’s commentary was absolutely hilarious and entertaining. Pair him up with Sugar Ray and let them run this thing. You’ll have the serious boxing expert, and then the casual fan view along with some really entertaining side chat from Snoop. I loved it when he came on. It gave me life. I cannot emphasize how awesome that was for me. Especially after being irritated by musical performances that I don’t want to pay for.
The main fight.
I don’t know what I came expecting here, but one thing I did expect was a competition and honesty. I think that most of us would agree that Mike Tyson did more work here, landed more shots, and from my vantage point, appeared more committed to fighting.
Yes, I know this was an exhibition, and I believe that they had rules about no knockouts and crap like that. But that was one of my concerns to begin with, is this going to be messing around or is it going to be a fight?
I feel like calling the fight a “draw” was a coward’s move. I believe that they didn’t want to make either of them look bad or hurt their legacies and they took a cop-out. I can appreciate that sentiment, but I think most of us can agree that Tyson took that. He says he’s good with it, but that doesn’t make it true or right. It just means he’s okay with it.
I noticed that Roy Jones Jr appeared to be walking a bit off. It appeared to me like he may have had a leg or hip injury. I’m not sure but he just seemed a bit off to me. What do you think?
Tyson on the other hand looked pretty damn healthy and strong to me. He didn’t appear to be hurt or anything at all during the fight. I might argue that he actually held back.
Next time, I’d like to see them make it 3 minutes per round. Two minutes was just too quick and didn’t allow any time for things to happen. The fight felt way too short, even for an exhibition fight with older fighters.
The other fights.
I respect anyone who is willing to get in there and throw down. It felt as though this was like my old MMA fight league though. What I mean by that is that they put fighters in there who were mismatched to a degree.
I mean, I’m not going to break down every fight in depth, (as if I could even if I wanted to, LOL) but I’ll share a bit of my opinion.
I don’t think that Nate Robinson was prepared to fight a real boxer. He may have been trained, but all that went out the window in a blaze of nerves, anxiety and over aggression. You never, never rush in towards a fighter with your dome exposed. I respect that he got in there and fought. And though I don’t know anything about Jake Paul, I also respect that he appears to be serious about the craft. There was no way they could call this one a tie, I mean, he knocked him out.
Badou Jack and Blake McKernan had a good fight, but again, it appeared to be a bit of a mismatch. That being said, Blake came to fight and that dude has some guts. Badou did what he had to do and took the w in this one, but you gotta respect that heart displayed here
Jamaine Ortiz and Sulaiman Segawa had a pretty good fight. At first it appeared as though it was anyone’s fight, but as the minutes progressed, Ortiz really appeared to take command while Segawa appeared to be in survival mode. Still, a fairly good contest.
Conclusion.
If they put in less music and more actual fighting related stuff, I’ll definitely sign up for this again. However, if it stays in its current form with so many musical acts, 2 minute fight rounds and so on, then I won’t be paying for this event again. If you bring Snoop back, that will certainly increase the odds of another big pay day for you guys at League of Legends. Everyone loves Snoop! Overall, this was entertaining for me, not bad for a quarantine in Saturday night.
Just a life long New Yorker sharing the journey through my lens. Please take note of a post’s date. The views I express here are subject to change and evolving as I grow and learn.
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