by Matt Wall

Created on: April 25, 2008   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

Let's be honest right from the start.

Floyd Mayweather only ever makes one promise, one certain guarantee; and that's that he'll entertain his public.

Sure, professional wrestling purists might have squirmed a country mile when this match was first announced - especially if they had memories of the last match of this kind back in 1995 when American Footballer Lawrence Taylor shared the main event spot at WrestleMania with Bam Bam Bigelow - but few can argue that Maywether delivered on his one promise, as his match with the Big Show certainly WAS entertaining... But let's look even deeper here...

Let's continue with the honesty theme now we've started; we shouldn't kid ourselves into thinking that Vince McMahon and his WWE company arranged this match - and the one back in 1995, and Mike Tyson's WrestleMania appearance back in 1998 - for any other reason than to gain the industry some publicity, and that worked, too. The hype surrounding this year's WrestleMania was like nothing I've ever known before, and I've been watching the sport since the very early 90s. Mayweather and Show could have gone out there and stunk up the joint but the match would still have served it's main objective of getting publicity and making money for WWE.

What WWE didn't realise - or perhaps did - is that they were on a real winner with Mayweather. He was never going to do anything other than throw himself into this show 110% - and as such, the match was always going to come off well. Back in '98, WWE sold Tyson's WrestleMaia angle with Shawn Michaels by saying that Tyson had been a huge WWE fan all his life; but anyone tuning in at the time to see him on WWE shows could see that he was as stiff as a board out there. Mayweather on the other had, really IS a huge WWE fan, and you could tell.

Professional wrestling is a work - the world accepts that. It's an angle, a show. But so many people fall in love with it because the characters involved make it so real, and Mayweather did little to break the illusion and he should get some credit for that. He was fully into all the pre-fight build-up, did the pose-downs and the month's worth of TV shows before 'Mania, and most all, come fight night, he took his bumps like a professional and came off looking fantastic.

I don't think anyone can argue that this match was massively entertaining - you could see that both guys really wanted it to work, and they got their rewards. It's boosted the company's mainstream profile no-end, and of course, made Vince McMahon a huge load of cash...!

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