o why did they have a 45-minute ‘lunch’ break when the Kiwis were 12 runs from victory with 9 wickets in hand against England? Not a trick question. I thought it was absurd until one of the mandarins of cricket explained to me how much money was at stake. Ah, the food and drink for the fans in the stadium and the earnings of the franchisees, I said with incandescent insight. No, he said, no one cares about them, they have already paid up, it is the TV audiences and the lunchtime ads that make the revenue because it is a whole chunk of repeats and the promised number of exposures has to be accommodated. Rain is force majeure, well insured, this is not. Anything for money, that’s cricket for you, even if it means being silly.

But to my peeve for the day.

Just like those fading wildlife species that get their heads stuck on walls and above doors, all the world heavyweight champions have left of their glory is folks like former Maine Boxing Commissioner George Russo selling their stuff as souvenirs. Mohammed Ali’s famous ‘phantom’ punch pair of gloves from his controversial 1965 match with Sonny Liston (his pair,too) went for a tad less than a million dollars earlier this week but it’s okay if you have that kind of money because these guys had a rich legacy. They counted. They were literally on top of the world. They were the heavies. Make a list and your memory doesn’t fail you. Like an army of your friends the names keep coming so easy. Max Baer, Jack Dempsey, Floyd Patterson, Sonny Liston, Ingmar Johansson, Leonard Spinks, Henry Cooper, Mike Tyson, Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano, Joe Frazier, George Foreman. And the man, Cassius “Mohammed Ali” Clay. Each one had style, a character you could package, stencil and sell through the media. Each fight had razzmatazz in the build-up, it meant the best against the best, it was romantic, gutsy, tough and lean and mean. Remember the ‘Thrilla in Manila’ and the ‘Rumble in the jungle.’ These guys were the biggest and the brightest, legends of the game and we’d walk that extra mile or wake up before the sun to watch them.

Then suddenly, the golden era of heavyweight boxing was over. The miserably cold and soggy alphabet soup created by the warring associations and officials made a farce of the title. You lost track of who was the real champion. Their color faded like a painting left in the rain.

Now we have the International Boxing Federation (IBF) the World Boxing Association (WBA), the World Boxing Council (WBC) and the World Boxing Organization (WBO) and it is a mess.

Reflect on the grandeur in the names of the boxers above and then look at these names: Alexander Povetkin (WBA) Wladimir Klitschko (IBF) Bermane Stivern(WBC) Ruslan Chagaev (WBA) Deontay Wilder(WBC). No disrespect but they are the world heavyweight champions of the current era. Do they send a tingle down your spine, have you even heard of them, would you buy their gloves for $10?

I’d rather go for an ABBA concert at the famous Madison Square Garden than watch these guys pairing up.

No wonder then that we have to stir synthetic excitement over the Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather bout come May, after five years of dilly dallying. There is this desperate attempt to generate global enthusiasm by billing it as the most expensive fight in history. The world will watch, this is boxing come alive, rah, rah, rah. Yeah, sure, if you say so. But would I go crazy to get into the MGM Grand two months down the road?

They say it’s the fight of the century and ticket prices are soaring but really, can you dredge and find some adrenaline pumping thrall, because I cannot. The summit is the summit. The 100 meters sprint is it. The Grand National is unique. The mile is the mile. The Tour de France is iconic. Like Everest, soaring above the others. The heavyweight champion of the world is just that.

Two welterweights don’t hack it. It will be a good fight though the face off has become stale through years of impasse and may just flop over like a sour soufflé but let’s stop kidding ourselves. Boxing at the top is dead. They killed it and now all they have left is the kit and the memories.

Who can forget Ali standing over Liston yelling at him to get up and fight. What a picture. That was boxing and showbiz combined.

This is just a stand in dim sliver of light for the stars.