The question came to me today at work from my young friend Travis.

“Are you going to watch the fight?” he asked.

Nope. Not a chance. Zero.

Then I launched into a mini-tirade about the state of professional boxing today. In summary: It’s a joke, but a not-funny one.

“The fight” will be between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao for the world welterweight championship. Fight fans have been waiting for this one. It’s been called “The Fight of the Century.”

Yeah. Whatever.

My tirade to my young pal consisted of a walk through memory lane and about how pro boxing has developed multiple “champions of the world” in every weight class. Back when I used to watch boxing religiously, you had heavyweight, light-heavyweight, middleweight, welterweight, lightweight, featherweight, bantamweight and flyweight champs. These days you add “super” and “junior” to almost all those weight classes and the number of classifications is multiplied by a factor of 10 … or maybe 20. Hell, I don’t know.

Add to that the number of governing organizations that recognize these champions of the world. You have an alphabet-soup list of organizations claiming their piece of the world championship pie.

It’s a joke.

Back in the day, I told my friend, the heavyweight champion of the world was considered the “baddest man on Earth.” Yep. I refer to Muhammad Ali — who really was the baddest cat on the planet. And he was unafraid to proclaim it. Before him, well, the list is lengthy.

Boxing used to be fun. It is no longer of any interest to me.

Who’ll win “The Fight of the Century”? I don’t know … or care.