Is it a sign that boxing is dead when one of the biggest potential fights is another re-match between two men around 40 years old?
And they aren’t even heavyweights?
Mitch Moss, the host of “Follow The Money” on the Vegas Stats and Information Network, is with us for that and this: the Vegas Golden Knights are revoking tickets of some season ticket holders—and some football stadiums around the country don’t look exactly full. Is that a bad sign for the soon-to-be Las Vegas Raiders?
UNLV FOOTBALL
UNLV is 2-2, but they beat scrubs UTEP and Prairie View but lost to USC and Arkansas State. The rebels play New Mexico is this weekend. Is UNLV good enough to win, especially since their star quarterback is out indefinitely?
Moss said that Armani Rogers’ injury is the big story. He supposed to be out for at least six weeks.
“The problem with Rogers is he is one of the least accurate quarterbacks I’ve seen in my life,” Moss said.
However, he is very good at running the football and is ultra-athletic. Moss says New Mexico is going to score points against UNLV’s defense. But UNLV is favored by 8.5 or 9 points, but Moss says that’s “exceedingly high.”
“I don’t understand that number,” he said.
Moss said UNLV fans shouldn’t write off the entire season because the replace QB, Max Gilliam, may be more accurate and may put some pep back in the team’s offense.
However, he wants to see what happens.
“I need to see it with him for at least one game first before I can really give you a very positive or a very critical judgment on him,” he said.
UNR seem better than they were sold at the start of the season. They got blown out by Vanderbilt and Toledo but beat Air Force and Oregon State.
“I’ll say this about the Wolfpack up North,” he said, “They are very entertaining to watch so far.”
He said the stretch ahead is going to tough but if the Wolfpack can keep those games close and be competitive late into the games they should take that as a win. He doesn’t expect them to win any of the next three games.
He thinks it is unlikely that UNR will reach a bowl game this year. He’s skeptical about UNLV’s chances but he’s not ready to say no way until he sees the replacement QB make some plays.
VEGAS GOLDEN KNIGHTS
The Knights revoked season tickets from people who were reselling those tickets.
Moss says it is not fair to assume that someone is going to go to every game that Knights play at the T-Mobile. He doesn’t see anything wrong with people reselling their tickets if they can’t attend the game.
He admits it did look bad that there were so many Capitals fans in the stands during the Stanley Cups finals.
“That was a bad look,” he said, “When it’s the first year and that home-ice advantage was the best in the entire league and it’s filled with a bunch of red?”
The issue might come up again this season because Moss believes will be a playoff team again this season. He said they’ve lost some guys during the offseason but they did make some good pickups.
“I think because of some of the moves they made and bringing in some of the good players they did they can – let’s say they finish second or third in their division there is no shame in that! That’s still an excellent season,” he said.
BOXING
Boxing used to be synonymous with Vegas casinos. Muhammad Ali, Floyd Mayweather, Mike Tyson. But now the biggest thing to come out of boxing is the potential match in 2019 between Floyd Mayweather Junior, who is over 40, and Manny Pacquiao, who is 39. What happened to boxing?
“To do this - in all honesty – is a complete sham,” he said, “It’s a travesty.”
He says people will actually get the pay-per-view.
Moss said the talk about the death of boxing has been going on for a long time. When he moved to Las Vegas and saw his first big fight, he’s heard talk about the end of the sport.
He said there will always be fights that true fans will want to watch, but to get the casual fight fan he’s not sure there’s a match that could be put together that people would want to watch.
Moss says UFC is not much better. He says there are too many fights and too many cards.
“You can’t keep selling pay-per-views every week or every other week and expect people to dish out that kind of money,” he said.
But Moss says that Connor McGregor, who fights this weekend, will still be a draw.
NFL ATTENDANCE
“I don’t think it’s on the decline,” he said, “I think there are certain situations like with the Redskins I think they announced 57,000 and that stadium holds 80,000 plus I think. They’re just sick of the owner.”
He says the fans just don’t like the Redskins owner.
But overall, Moss thinks the one thing that has hurt the NFL more than anything else is the roughing the passer rule.
“I think that the way that the tinkered with the rules and it has gotten so soft to where you can barely touch the quarterback anymore,” he said. “This is a genuinely worrisome topic for the NFL.”
He says he hopes they change it because people will tune out because of that.
Mitch Moss, host, Follow the Money on VSIN