SNL Gives You an Special Look at Yesterday’s Big Boxing Match
When the SNL writers decided to craft a sketch mocking the boxing match between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao, they had no idea that the “fight of the century” would turn out to be a huge bust that would leave sports fans enraged. This adds a level of meta-humor to an already funny sketch. In many ways, SNL’s very silly take on this fight is significantly more interesting than the real thing.
The sketch opens with a message from NBC saying that yes, you could be watching that boxing match on Pay Per View right now, but you shouldn’t change the channel. Oh, no. Because the desperate network is going to illegally air the fight for you at this very moment. It’s a clever way for the show to acknowledge that it’s going up against a massive event that will surely wreck its ratings.
Things stay amusing when the actual fight begins, with Jay Pharoah playing Mayweather and Aidy Bryant playing Pacquiao. Amusingly, NBC has to chime in and say that the pirated signal has distorted the fighters, hence their odd appearances. The fight itself is just the two performers swinging at each other in the most boring way possible, which is, in retrospect, the hilarious takedown of the actual fight that no one could predict.
Most importantly, Kate McKinnon’s Justin Bieber is watching from the sidelines and that’s an impression we will never, ever not want to see.