Mayweather's humiliating reality

Boxer Floyd Mayweather, Jr. Photo / AP.

On May 2, 2015, Floyd Mayweather fought at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas in front of 16,000 people.

Now, he can barely hold court in a leisure centre in a tiny English town.

That's the reality of the 38-year-old's life these days as he continues his "2016 European Victory Tour". This "tour", that commenced at the start of the month, is really just a money-grabbing exercise where he charges fans up to $1200 for the chance to get a photo and ask a few questions.

But, according to Oliver Brown of UK publication the Telegraph, a tour that was initially envisioned as a grand, everyone-look-at-me type spectacle has fizzled dismally into something the champion boxer won't be keen to write about in his memoirs.

Initially scheduled to take his tour to the Vox Centre in Birmingham - a venue that can cater for up to 900 guests - a complete lack of interest has meant Mayweather's had to shift his appearance to the Premier Suite in Cannock instead.

Brown emphasised the downgrade by referring to the Premier Suite as "a place more accustomed to hosting discos and hens' parties than megalomaniacal boxers".

That's right, a man with 49 wins and no losses to his name, a man who fought in what was billed as "The Fight of the Century", a man who has won world titles in five weight divisions, has been forced to promote himself in an unglamorous hall in a quaint English town.

Cannock, for your information, has a population of roughly 30,000, and pretty much none of those 30,000 want to pay ludicrous sums of money to take a selfie with Mayweather.

He's not on the big stage anymore.

The Premier Suite is reportedly charging $920 and $500 - for the "gold" and "silver" packages - for the chance to sit in on a Q&A session and grab a picture. Tickets have still not sold out.

Hell, forget the guy's reputation, the man owns a tiger for God's sake. He can get anything he wants in this world, but he can't get people to a small auditorium to hear him speak.

Oh how the mighty have fallen.

The last night of his tour is on Valentine's Day, but again the setting will be equally as bland as that location in Cannock - this time it's the Bunyan Leisure Centre in Bedford.
Yep. A sports hall in a town with a population just shy of 100,000 is the final stop for a man who would no doubt suggest he is God's gift to this Earth.

As Brown so brilliantly put it in his column, Mayweather's life right now draws eerily similar parallels to that of the character played by Ricky Gervais on UK television series The Office.

"Mayweather resembles a blinged-up David Brent, labouring under sorrowful delusions of grandeur," wrote Brown.

"He believes he was born for the big show, just as Brent would tell his agent that he deserved an interview with Michael Parkinson. 'OK, I'll see what I can do - but in the meantime you're down at Malibu's in Bracknell, Wednesday week.'"

When your life is compared to that of David Brent, you're doing something wrong. It just doesn't get more humiliating than that.

-News.com.au