Sky Sports boxing historian Bob Mee blogs from Las Vegas in the build-up Amir Khan v Danny Garcia.
Bob blogs from Vegas in fight week
Sky Sports boxing historian and statsman Bob Mee blogs from Las Vegas in the build-up Amir Khan v Danny Garcia...
And so 48 hours after Kell Brook's bloody win over Carson Jones in grey, wet Sheffield, we flew into Las Vegas, dropping down, as we always do, over Sonny Liston's grave in the Paradise Memorial Gardens across the road from McCarran Airport.
It's good to be back and not just for the 44-degree heat and a sky that holds no rain between here and Arkansas. We are here to witness and report on the next episode of the Amir Khan story as he boxes for the light-welterweight championship, or a piece of it, against Danny Garcia in the early hours of Sunday - and the sleeping giant that is fight week in Vegas is beginning to yawn and stretch.
Yesterday we had the staged 'arrivals' of the boxers, choreographed half an hour apart, in which both men stroll into the lobby of the Mandalay Bay, say a few words to the media and sign autographs for genuine fans and strays who have a notion that something is happening here.
The British writers are here early in recognition of the genuine fight of the week - Jeff Powell of the Daily Mail, Ron Lewis of the Times, David Anderson of the Mirror among them.
The Garcia team let the four of us from Sky travel with them in their people carrier to the sweltering evening workout at a gym at the back of a house in a small street off Flamingo (Road).
I clambered in the back door to sit on the floor where the suitcases usually sit... the workout, as they all are in this final week, was just a loosener, a break from boredom and nothing more, but as always we watched as if conclusions could be drawn.
I was struck by how slow Garcia's feet were, how ordinary he looked on the pads but I learned long ago that nobody should ever believe what they see here.
There are photos and murals of great fighters around three sides of the walls, including a poster from a fight when Khan's trainer Freddie Roach was in the main event back in the 80s.
The man called Rick who runs the gym said Roberto Duran was the best fighter that has ever trained there. Well, I guess Duran would be the best fighter to have trained in most gyms that he ever trained in.
Garcia smiled a tolerant smile as he did his obligatory interview. He didn't really want us there and nor did his father and trainer, Angel, but it's all a part of the job for all of us. After a couple of hours we piled back into the people carrier to return to the Strip, turning left within sight of The Mirage and up to the Mandalay Bay with its air-conditioning scented with something that might be vanilla.
In my room as the sun went down on the mountains and the red desert, I saw a piece on the internet about how Evander Holyfield was so broke his home has been repossessed and he owes the taxman more than any ordinary man can earn in a lifetime.
It's 20 years since I saw Holyfield fight Riddick Bowe in their classic first fight at the Thomas and Mack Center. Bowe is down on his luck these days too... I remember how Sonny Liston smashed the resistance out of Floyd Patterson in another heavyweight championship fight here nearly 50 years ago, and how Sonny spent his last years here, as did Joe Louis, whose statue in Caesars Palace still draws fight fans to pay homage.
Today Khan and Garcia will work out, choreographed 45 minutes apart by promoters Golden Boy, at the Mizuya Lounge in the Mandalay Bay. We will watch and think and talk about what if and what might be, draw conclusions that might have some truth to them and might not. It's what happens in Fight Week.
Tomorrow it's the final press conference, on Friday the weigh-in. Only on Saturday night, or Sunday morning if you live in Britain and Europe, when the first bell rings will a kind of truth begin to emerge and Khan and Garcia will take their place in the history of this weird, compelling sprawl in the desert.
