What chance does a fly stand against a spider?
Roughly the same odds cage-fighting star Conor McGregor will enjoy when he takes on unbeaten pugilist Floyd Mayweather Jnr. in their boxing (mis)match at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas on August 26.
A foregone conclusion or not, pundits are predicting the pay-per-view for this contest (make that a CONtest!) will break the record of 4.6-million buys for Mayweather's convincing 2015 points victory over Manny Pacquiao, which generated revenue exceeding $400-million (R5-billion).
There's talk there will be more than five million buys producing more than R6.4-billion in income.
At a rate of one born every minute, that's a decade full of suckers who are set to be parted from their cash in two months' time.Between now and then, people hoping to benefit from this bonanza will try hard to convince fans that this is a fair fight.
"Conor is bigger, stronger, younger, and has a longer reach," McGregor's sparring partner, Artem Lobov, told Reuters this week. "He [Mayweather] often likes to get into the clinch, but what is a boxer in a clinch against a wrestler, an MMA [mixed martial arts] fighter? Boxers are absolute novices in the clinch."
There are problems with Lobov's theory.
Reach means little, and this fight will be staged under the Queensberry Rules, which don't permit wrestling; it's like claiming Valentino Rossi's advantage lies in his ability to do wheelies - just before he takes on Lewis Hamilton in an F1 race. It's irrelevant.
Sure, McGregor has the supposed age advantage, at 28 to Mayweather's 40, and "Money" hasn't fought since September 2015.
Asked if he thought Mayweather could lose, Showtime Sports head Stephen Espinoza told The Telegraph: "You never know.
"It's been two years since we've seen Floyd in the ring. We don't know what those two years have done to him. So you can never assume we know what's going to happen."
Unless this is fixed or Mayweather's water is spiked, he cannot lose.
Boxing experience is the only thing that will matter come fight night, and Mayweather knows this. He has pedigree - he's a 1996 Olympic bronze medallist and has 49 wins from 49 paid bouts.
McGregor's mixed martial arts career record stands at 21 wins and three defeats. He hasn't even boxed as an amateur and boxing is a fine art, albeit brutal, mastered over years.
There will be comparisons to Muhammad Ali's cross-over fight against professional wrestler Antonio Inoki in 1976.
That involved a hybrid of rules, and for most of the 15 rounds Inoki lay on the floor kicking at the legs of Ali, who reportedly threw just six punches in total.
It ended in a boring draw, but Inoki actually controlled that scrap and perhaps that will spark optimism for McGregor.
"I'm one of those who believes in being able to cross over," said Holly Holm, a former boxer who switched to MMA where she stunned the world by knocking out superstar Ronda Rousey in 2015.
"Boxing is a whole different world ... but Conor really believes in himself."
So what? Surely Pacquiao and Ricky Hatton had self-belief before losing to Mayweather?
The most appropriate bout to use as the standard-bearer for this looming massacre involves one of Ali's predecessors, Floyd Patterson. In his second defence as world heavyweight champion in 1957 he took on reigning Olympic gold medallist and professional debutant Pete Rademacher.
Patterson knocked him out.
Amateur great Teofilo Stevenson turned down a fortune to fight Ali. He insisted his decision was based on patriotism to Cuba, but there is speculation he knew what the outcome would be.
There's a gulf separating amateur and professional boxing, and McGregor isn't even on the lowest rung of that scale.
Inoki knew he couldn't stand up to Ali, and that is the lesson McGregor - and all those being duped by this fight - are yet to learn.
sports@timesmedia.co.za..