It's just minutes before the Fight of the Century when you lock eyes with Sting.
He looks good. Real good. He's 63 years old. It's a long time since he recorded a song that didn't make you want to deafen yourself with a fork. But he looks great.
Sting is sitting 13 rows from the ring, directly behind the media section. It's a long way for a guy who's sold 100 million records. As the two of you share your moment, Sting is huddled in conversation with NBA Hall of Famer Magic Johnson and NFL Hall of Famer Michael Strahan.
Those two look comfortable here. Down in the pit, surrounded by the mob. It's where they made their living.
They don't mind being pawed by random weirdos who want the plebs 10 rows further back to think they're in good with Magic Johnson. Every time some wobbly middle-aged dude in a bad, printed shirt puts a hand on Sting's shoulder, he jumps six inches in the air. He's used to being up on stage. Where it's safe.
Sting looks about as happy down here with us as you'd be on the killing floor of a factory farm shaking hands with your dinner.
He clearly has no idea what Mr. Johnson or Mr. Strahan are talking about. His attention has wandered. You spot one another.
Objectively, he is better than you. He's handsomer, more talented and far richer. All you have on Sting right now is geography.
You're three rows closer to the main source than Sting, or Mr. Strahan, or Mr. Johnson, or a bunch of other rich B-listers who haven't made the ringside cut.
For a couple of hours here, that seems as if it matters.
'Not afraid of losing'
As it turns out, the biggest fight of all time wasn't much of a fight.
Late on Friday, Floyd Mayweather's camp decided to nail itself in the crotch with a public-relations mallet by effectively banning several journalists not considered Friends of Floyd.
After the move caught huge traction on social media, they relented. The arena passes were restored. Mr. Mayweather's reputation was not.
You were standing in line for the special fight-night credentials. A bunch of middle-aged saps left out in the beating sun, suit jackets wrapped around their heads like turbans. It was a reminder of your place in the world.
The guy behind you was one of Mr. Mayweather's less-publicized targets, a noted observer of the boxing world. He'd had his fight ticket pulled. At the last moment, HBO intervened and was able to re-credential him. He seemed bemused by the whole schmozzle, but not by Mr. Mayweather.
You asked him how it was all going to turn out. He grinned and said, "I hate the son of a bitch, but he's still going to win."
In front was Manny Pacquiao's dentist. He looked like a prosperous chap. He was keen to e-mail everyone photos of Mr. Pacquiao's custom mouthguard. This is the vibe most of Mr. Pacquiao's camp gives off – it's as if your uncles and your granddad joined the Crips.
How's Manny doing? Have you seen him?
"He seems very calm," the dentist said. "He said he is not afraid of losing."
Weeeell, that's never a good thing. But at least he was winning the agit-prop battle.
In the course of a single week, Mr. Mayweather had progressed from cartoon villain to universally loathed Enemy of Decency. He likes to call himself TBE (The Best Ever), but what he hadn't counted on is that no one outside the fight community really had any idea who he was.
It was only inside the strange economics of boxing – with its shady promotions and pay-per-view money tree – that this relatively obscure athlete could become the richest of all time. Mr. Mayweather had fooled himself into believing a bunch of money is synonymous with superstardom. It isn't.
It was only in the past week that Mr. Mayweather crossed over to general celebrity. He seemed honestly surprised when people turned on him.
The scent of intimidation
He showed up on Saturday afternoon in a custom Range Rover. Denzel Washington rode shotgun. After the fight, the car was still parked there. Maybe Mr. Mayweather treats his automobiles like his shoes – abandoning them after one use.
They pulled up outside the main entrance to the MGM Grand Arena, sparking pandemonium among the early-bird gawkers. Everyone wants a piece of Mr. Mayweather, though no one is bold enough to invade his private space.
He is a tiny man, but he has a gladiator's charm – the scent of fear and intimidation. He could hurt you. He apparently likes hurting people. Up close, you'd be surprised how hypnotic that can be.
Mr. Mayweather breezed through security. In this moment, among all this wattage, Mr. Mayweather is the sun.
Nobody else has that much pull. Former world heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis rolls up and cuts the ticket line. He's turned away. Moments later, Roy Jones – once the best pound-for-pound fighter alive – does the same thing and gets the same treatment.
Later, a decrepit security guard in a bad polyester jacket will run down rapper 50 Cent like an antelope after he walks around rather than through a metal detector.
"Wait! Wait! They haven't been checked!" the security guard shrieks, leaping into action. The rapper smiles, amused to have rediscovered that thing called "rules."
The rest of the year, these guys don't have to hunt around for their All-Access Pass. Their face is their pass. Not on Saturday night. On Saturday night, you needed to show ID.
Look, it's Clint Eastwood
In the hours before the fight, it's complete pandemonium in and around the MGM. There are six layers of security to pass through, including a kennel's worth of sniffer dogs.
The mood is tense. Most people are a little drunk or a little high. There are an awful lot of them. The average age might be mid-20s. Very few have tickets to the fight. You wander into the heaving casino for a while.
For the first time in your career, it occurred to you that displaying a credential (which was also your ringside ticket) was a bad idea. You button it inside your shirt.
The real players are rolling up to the VIP entrance. At about 5 p.m. local time, the sketchy-looking-dude factor is reaching historical highs. A few things will die here tonight. The first of them – fashion.
Did you know acid-wash jeans were a thing again? They aren't. But they are here, with these odd, moneyed, excessively collagened people.
Ambitious 18th-century French aristos used to weave birdcages into their hair – complete with live birds – because that's something so hideous and foolish, the plebs would never bother. Acid-wash jeans are the modern equivalent.
The real celebrities don't show up until just before Mr. Mayweather and Mr. Pacquiao enter.
Look! It's Clint Eastwood. And Bradley Cooper. And Robert De Niro. And Mike Tyson … it goes on like that forever. No one in here paid less than $1,500 for a ticket. Down on the floor it cost tens of thousands. But they're all shrieking like Harajuku girls.
The Japanese journalist sitting next to you is trying to keep track. He asks for help identifying the celebs as their faces are posted on big screens. Then he says, "Is Paris Hilton the most famous person here?"
He's serious.
People, Japan needs your prayers.
The start of the fight is delayed because so many people worldwide are trying to buy the pay-per-view at the last minute. This is another thing the crowd chooses to hold against Mr. Mayweather. Every time he's shown on the screens – backstage, getting taped – he is showered in jeers.
Mr. Mayweather lives here in Las Vegas, in a house he will later remind us cost "eight figures." You don't boo a guy in his front yard. Especially not when he's fighting a foreigner.
Drowned in taunts
Eventually, they get out there. The fight is the sort of slog that appeals to technicians and wonks.
Mr. Pacquiao chased. Mr. Mayweather fled. Mr. Pacquiao pressed. Mr. Mayweather repelled. It ended in an undisputable unanimous decision. Mr. Pacquiao still tried to dispute it.
In the immediate aftermath, he told HBO host Max Kellerman, "I thought I won the fight."
Caught unawares, Mr. Kellerman couldn't keep a note of pure wonderment out of his voice as he said, "You thought you won the fight? Why?"
Mr. Mayweather is 48-0, one win from Rocky Marciano's all-time record.
People came to this contest hoping to fall back in love with the sport. Mr. Mayweather was never going to be able to provide that – too defensive, too personally compromised, too committed to his sporting legacy. If the state of boxing had been his only concern, he'd have lost on purpose.
Once it ended, they drowned Mr. Mayweather in taunts.
"You shouldn't be booing him in his hometown," one tired and emotional woman with her high-heels in her hands screamed up at the crowd. "It's wrong."
You could see it on Mr. Mayweather's face – he couldn't compute what he was hearing. He could understand how they'd turned on him beforehand. That's in the nature of the crowd. That was theatre. The media was to blame. But now? Now that he'd won?
You almost felt sorry for him. Almost.
The celebs were already gone by that point. They didn't want to be connected with the champion, even by virtue of physical proximity. You looked around for Sting, so you could give him your ticket as a souvenir. Maybe he could lie to his friends about it.
By incredible good fortune, you end up trapped in the path of singer Chris Brown – the only man in the joint more polarizing than Mr. Mayweather. He also doesn't use his words very well.
The riff-raff had now descended from the stands and were trying to take pictures with Mr. Brown. He's a lot bigger than you'd think. He seemed amenable. His gargantuan bodyguard did not.
This shaved brute kept shoving guys out of the way, creating a wave of human dominos. Every time you juked left or right, Mr. Brown and his bodyguard followed. How many people get killed in a two-person stampede? In the end, you're cravenly sprinting up the tunnel ahead of them. You're Indiana Jones. They're the boulder.
You've made a wrong turn. You burst from the frosted glass doors of the VIP entrance. For a moment, you get a red-carpet experience – Klieg lights turned in your face, expectant fans, the tang of weed in the air. Then they realize you are just you. Someone actually says, "Aww."
The cameras drop. The fans tilt their eyes over your shoulder. Your moment has passed.
Cultural punchline
More than an hour after the fight, they did the presser back in the arena. The lights were all up. The place was filthy. The building felt hung over.
Mr. Pacquiao came out first, dressed in a shirt and slacks, returned to civilian mode. He blamed a shoulder tear for his performance. His manager, Freddie Roach, asked for a rematch. His promoter, Bob Arum, tried to explain the nature of the injury, but, like most things Mr. Arum says, it didn't make a lot of sense.
At times, while others talked for him, Mr. Pacquiao laid his head on the table. He looked tired and defeated. You felt sorry for him. No "almost" about it.
In the midst of the Pacquiao camp's comments, Mr. Mayweather walked up onto the podium by himself.
He shook a few hands, stepped up to the mic and started talking. Mr. Pacquiao slunk off. He was so close, but we've seen the last of him as an imaginative figure in the ring. He does many things well – philanthropy, politics, evangelism, even pop music. It's time to start thinking about doing them on the regular.
Mr. Mayweather tried to be humble. It's not in his nature. He told the press that he'd never read any of them, then berated them for what they'd written. He wanted everyone to know he'd been handed a $100-million cheque after the match. He praised the fight because it had earned him "nine figures." He kept saying "nine figures," like a kid who's just learned to count.
"Ali, he called himself the greatest. But this is my era," Mr. Mayweather said. "I'm just the American dream."
You were beginning to get a mad, bad King Lear vibe from him. He went on and on. He promised to get up early and spend all day "reading what y'all wrote." Then he'd go back to bed, get up on Monday and relinquish his three title belts.
He says he doesn't care about Mr. Marciano's record, or boxing in general. He's going to fight once more and then quit. He has no idea what he'll do next. He's the best in the world at something, and he doesn't want to do it any more. How sad is that?
He talked compulsively about his kids and his family and his team. Coming from a guy who we all know, via public record, has a deeply flawed personal life, it was hard to credit.
Mr. Mayweather loves to compare himself with Muhammad Ali, but he is more in the tradition of a Sonny Liston or a Joe Frazier – the tragically flawed outsider. Like those other great fighters, he's a champion, but belts and money can't fill that hole.
"People don't really know me," Mr. Mayweather said. Maybe. But they know his type. We've all been burned by someone like him at some point in our lives.
Most of all, he seemed so alone up there. Mr. Pacquiao walked into the room with his family. Mr. Mayweather walked in with the hired help.
However much he now dislikes the craft he's mastered like few in history, Mr. Mayweather did not want to get off that dais. He knows instinctively what comes next – the slow fade into a cultural punchline. It will never get any better than this. And it wasn't that great.
He won the boxing match. He drew the world's most famous names into his orbit. He got the biggest cheque of all time. He created a global moment.
But Floyd Mayweather knows he lost.
Cathal Kelly