“24/7,” the best commercial ever.
Last Saturday my roommate and I sat down and watch all four episodes of the HBO Documentary/Reality/Commerical Floyd/Mayweather 24/7. For those who weren’t down with the series (and I wasn’t one until early Saturday evening) it was a four week, all-access presentation of Floyd Mayweather and Oscar De La Hoya as the two trained for the title fight against one another Saturday night (on HBO Pay-Per-View).
The series was endlessly fascinating, not just because it showed both contenders training and all of the drama and storylines associated with that training, but because as the episodes went on we would see the two actually watching the program and responding to it. 24/7 wasn’t produced ahead of time, it was shot, edited and aired in about as close to real time as the medium allows. More details after the break…
In one episode 50 Cent is hanging with Mayweather riding on a Segway scooter. It was odd. Two episodes later De La Hoya’s wife is seen riding around on a Segway in their house mocking 50 Cent. Each camp would also show their training, but could have the cameras turned off during key strategical scenes. What fascinated me was the chess game that was being played between the trainers as much as the fighters. They weren’t so much making a documentary for us to watch as they had made a series of messages for their opponent to watch.
There were so many things at play and it was put together so tightly, as a viewer you forget that you’re actually just watching a really elaborate commercial for a Pay-Per-View event. Either way I must not have cared, because we decided to buy the fight Saturday night.
Unfortunately, the main event didn’t live up to the four-part, two hour commercial that preceded it, but really, no event could have. Mayweather won the fight soundly (despite the curious split decision), but he had promised a masacre for months, and frankly I was a little disappointed that we didn’t get to see that. Both men seemed to fight knowing that they enjoyed being reality stars much more than throwing punches or getting hit in the face and the event showed that.
The experience as a whole was worth it when all was said and done. Regardless of how things turn out, there is something incredibly rewarding about being part of a live television event — where “event” is the key word. My only complaint is now that the fight is over we won’t get to see any more episodes of 24/7, easily one of the best things television in 2007 had to offer.
The New York Times details the “Now What?” aspect of the fight.
Pic via Al Bello/Getty Images
Tags: Sports
