At midday, a young woman schlepping her own camera rig is doing a streeter outside the MGM Grand Arena.
It is witheringly hot. Lie-down-and-give-up hot. This is the uniformly beige backstage area of the casino, where they cart in the roughage and cart out the losers. There's nothing to be seen here and nowhere to go. Where these people are headed is a mystery.
TV lady hits each of them with a question: "Imagine I've got a $100,000 in one hand. In the other hand, I've got two tickets to the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight. Which do you choose?"
Not "two golden tickets" or "two tickets and a condo in Maui." Just two tickets.
To a man and woman, everyone takes the tickets. No hesitation. One lady jumps up and down and starts clapping. Like she's getting the tickets or something.
She isn't fooled. She's just excited by the idea of tickets.
It's gotten that stupid.
Vegas takes centre stage
The history of boxing is just history, full stop. We've been beating each other up for sport since the beginning. It's a straight line from Australopithecus to right here, right now.
Boxing drove the early days of television. At one point, fights were broadcast in the United States seven nights a week. They clustered in major cities, in venues such as Madison Square Garden.
In the mid-1950s, the fight game moved to Vegas, lured by big purses and staged in decrepit outdoor stadiums. The next iteration was rickety, temporary venues set up in the parking lots of casinos.
What nudie shows and the Rat Pack built, boxing helped expand. Only Vegas could properly monetize all the dirty fun that goes along with watching men beat each other senseless.
Caesars Palace and its ersatz Colosseum became the nexus of the fight world in the late seventies. Through the eighties, the city became synonymous with the "main-event" mindset. Whenever Guy Laliberté or Celine Dion are counting their money, they should be thanking Floyd Patterson as well as Frank Sinatra.
In the nineties, boxing moved indoors at the MGM Grand Arena. Twenty years on, it's a grotty spot, better suited to tractor pulls than ringside glamour. Like most things here, it compensates in size what it lacks in charm. But it turned the MGM into the Yankee Stadium or Old Trafford of pugilism.
Floyd Mayweather versus Manny Pacquiao is the ne plus ultra of all that striving. Depending on whom you ask, this is either boxing's death rattle or the start of its renaissance. As the fight gets closer, everyone figures that Pacquiao wins this bout by decision, only because that's the outcome that makes a rematch most likely.
That sense of a turning point – of either a beginning or an end – is driving the entire city to this place like moths to a flame.
By Friday morning, the MGM Grand casino is awash in humanity. They've started erecting barricades at the front doors. Everyone is on edge – that special frisson created by the imminence of violence.
One veteran offers this advice when it comes to all interactions over the next 36 hours: "Assume everyone is armed."
Every 10 feet, some bulky guy in a yellow "Security" T-shirt is eyeing you as if he'd like to pop your head off with his hands. Some are standing on risers that act as lifeguard chairs, scanning the roiling crowd.
After the Mike Tyson-Evander Holyfield fight in 1997 – the infamous ear-biting disqualification – enraged fans coming out of the arena rioted inside the MGM. Dozens were injured in a stampede. Dealers still tell stories about cowering under tables. For the first time in its history, the casino was closed to quell the unrest.
It was Vegas's Woodstock – everyone you talk to was there that night. And they just might have been.
It already has that atmo again, that heavy electric feeling you get when you sense that something is about to go down. Everybody here is huge. Where do these people come from? It's like a gigantism convention. Everyone's got a drink in their hand. Women are walking around wearing what amount to mesh-wrapped bathing suits. The men are openly leering. We're beyond decorum.
You can't get near the craps tables, which are running three deep. The main foyer looks like the prelude to a revolution. The inertia of the crowd falling into the casino proper is an unstoppable wave. If you tried to stand still, you'd be trampled.
Your lizard brain is telling you this is not a good place to be. That's why it wants you to stay.
Trainer Floyd Mayweather Sr. is making his way down the main hallway in increments of inches. People have already lost their minds, and begun pawing him like a poodle. One dazzled mope gets hold of Mayweather's shoulder and … will … not … let … go. One of Floyd Sr.'s sidekicks is forced to peel the guy off, like gaffer tape.
Until Sunday morning, this will be a dignity-free zone.
Two tired and emotional dolts spot the crowd around Floyd Sr. and nearly wet themselves with excitement.
"It's Mayweather's daddy!" one shrieks. They bolt for the hubbub. Unfortunately, we're standing between them and the object of desire. They fairly knock us flat when two steps right followed by two steps left would've done the trick. These people have all been bled dry by the Big Fight economy. They're not waiting for anything.
Former world light-welterweight champion Ruslan Provodnikov is walking around in a garish tracksuit that reads "Siberian Rocky" across the back. Both eyes are blackened. He's brought a translator. The only reason he's here is to be here. To be seen.
He's a gentle little guy, about as big as your average 15-year-old. He drones on about "my friend, Manny" this and "my friend, Manny" that.
Where's he going to watch the fight?
Provodnikov jerks his head up, affronted. He throws you a look that makes you want to burst into anticipatory tears. You get a momentary sense of how badly these people could hurt you if they cared to.
"I'm watching it in there," he gestures to the arena. "With you guys."
I'm sure he's telling the truth. He'd lie in any case. No one wants to be the sort of person who's come all this way, but doesn't rate a ticket.
Most of the people here on Friday are in that sad group, which is why they're here at all. They're determined to fill their boots while they get a chance.
Two hours ahead of the 3 p.m. weigh-in, it is wall-to-wall. Seriously. If you backed up against the wall, someone would climb over your head.
They sold tickets to this staring contest for 10 bucks each. The proceeds will go to charity. A ticketed weigh-in is a first in MGM, and perhaps, boxing history. Scalpers hiding out behind the slot machines are hawking the lower bowl for $200 (U.S.) – a 2,000-per-cent markup.
As it turns out, TV lady was playing things conservative. Ringside seats are running at $350,000 on StubHub. Each.
Just to watch the fight on TV at a bar or sports book on the Strip will cost you about 500 bucks. Add to that "dynamic pricing" for everything that can be sold. Every single thing.
On the way back to my hotel very early Friday morning, I crossed a pedestrian bridge. A shifty-looking guy was muttering "coke" to passersby. Even by Vegas standards, this is incredibly brazen. I assume he's in jail as you read this.
A few hundred feet later, a young woman stopped me and asked, "Where are you going?"
"My room."
"Oh, that's where I'm going, too! A hundred and fifty."
No. No, it's not. But I appreciate the enthusiasm.
The fight alone will generate about $400-million in revenues. That's roughly equal to the GDP of Tonga. They figure more than $100-million will be bet on the Strip Saturday night. The two fighters will split upward of $300-million.
In this instance, Mayweather Sr. acted as spokesperson for the vanishing middle class: "I have to say, them is some boggling numbers."
Everybody is a bit boggled. Ahead of the weekend, room rates began bottoming out as people realized they might come to town and not actually see the fight. It will only be available on MGM properties, and not on pay-per-view in any rooms. Off the Strip, bars and restaurants have been threatened with six-figure fines if they chintz on licensing fees.
Amazingly, Las Vegas is the one place on Earth you may not be able to watch the biggest fight in Las Vegas history.
Those already here are indulging themselves with a Last Day on Earth fervour.
In one instance, a cabbie tried to explain why he'd placed a dozen hundred-dollar bets (one for each round) on Pacquiao to win by knockout. He'd gotten 40-to-1 odds and was keen to share his secret.
"It doesn't matter when he does it, I win $2,800."
"But he still has to knock him out, right?"
"Yes … [slight pause for the light bulb to come on] … that's true."
This is where gambling becomes the evangelism of numbskullery. It's the logic that builds casinos.
We spent Thursday night playing blackjack with a couple of drunken lunatics from Tel Aviv. Their only English gambit, delivered with a wagging finger in the exasperated dealer's face is, "NO MAGIC." In between, they berate each other in Hebrew.
Around the time one of them split twos against a 10, we know we should leave. But we could not. Doing the wrong thing when you know what's right is the whole point of coming here.
They want to know if we have tickets to the fight. We do. Can they have our tickets? They cannot. How much do we want? Nothing. We're not selling the tickets. How much do we really want? It goes on like that for a while. Everyone has lost the plot.
At midnight, one of them screams, "IT'S MY BERTHEDAY!" The dealer looks over to figure out where security is. She shoots us a "Why me?" look.
"NO MAGIC ON MY BERTHEDAY!"
Eventually, they go broke and leave. We miss them already.
This tendency toward a hallucinogenic disregard for common sense has became a general problem by the time the weigh-in starts.
Everyone is starting to realize they've paid good money to watch what amounts to a peephole into a YMCA locker room. They're all pretty drunk by now. They've split into camps – Mayweather's so-called Money Team or Pacquiao's church mixer.
Out in the big world, everyone is turning against Mayweather. In Vegas, he's still been the favourite up until now. The sort of people who are going to pay this kind of money and put up with this kind of hassle prefer anti-heroes. They didn't come here to get blind drunk and then root for human decency and all of us holding hands across the world.
Pacquiao appears buoyant, a feeling that works its way through the crowd like a contagion. He comes out grinning and primping. He is, in the best sense of the word, unsophisticated. So are the fans.
For all the tension out in the city, there's been almost none between these two fighters. They're flanked by four ring girls. The women have six inches on either man. It's an almost comic effect. This whole thing makes you a little delirious.
At the stare-down that follows the weighing, Pacquiao says "Thank you" to Mayweather.
What were you thanking him for?
"Thanking him for the fact that the fight, it will happen."
Did you say anything back?
"No," Mayweather said with a bit of a "duh" inflection in his voice.
As they lock eyes, Pacquiao keeps slipping into a childish smirk. He turns away and points toward the back of his T-shirt: "All glory and honour belongs to God." The yahoos up in the stands can't be seen going against God. So they roar.
Mayweather looks up and shakes his head in frustration. He's lost the lead-in. Now he may be losing the crowd.
They began spilling back out into the casino, which is already too full. They're chanting "Manny, Manny." Most of them are not the sort of people Pacquiao would enjoy spending much time with and vice versa.
They're all off to get up to no good. A lot of them won't sleep tonight. As a result, nor will the rest of us. It's going to be a cancel-all-police-leaves sort of night in Las Vegas. It's going to be bedlam.
Outside, it's midafternoon. In here, it's midnight forever.
Cathal Kelly