All boxers are liars. Con men. The better the liar, the better the fighter. That’s because if you knew what was in a fighter’s heart, if you knew what he was really thinking, he’d be easier to find. And if you could find him, he’d be easier to hit. And if you could hit him, you might expose him. And that might expose every person they never stood up to and every person they never stood up for. A single blow can unveil the watermark of your soul in a way nothing else ever can.

Las Vegas, the most expensive toilet in the world that still can’t flush.

If you want to chase a runaway ambulance toward what’s left of the American Dream, Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao show you that, still, somehow, boxing remains the yellow brick road in our country.

While guidebooks might tell you that time collapsed here, another theory says that in Latin America, all of history coexists at once.

Mayweather was already a gargoyle for our era, a gleaming hood ornament on a demented limo running one red light after another, America’s id.