Financial flaunting masks insecurity of fight game

The imminent meeting of Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather in Las Vegas, and the inexorable awfulness of the build-up, may have scaled new heights of nonsense but Sin City and the fight game have always been perfectly in step when it comes to the art of show business and bluster and the business of making money.

It’s 62 years since the first prize fight of any real import was held in what was still closer to a one-horse town than the lurid but alluring metropolis that exists today.

It took place at Cashman Field in early May of 1955 and it paired the legendary Archie Moore with a not-quite-great Cuban by the name of Nino Valdes.