Forty-three–year-old ‘Sugar’ Shane Mosley, a former three-division world champion, and 41-year-old Ricardo Mayorga will be fighting on Saturday at the Forum.

It has been a promotion full of mis-steps not befitting Mosley, once regarded as the world’s best pound-for-pound fighter, and Mayorga, a former title-holder years removed from relevance.

Ticket sales have been slow. (Media members attending a press conference earlier this week were told to take home gratis tickets for family and friends.) Up until this week, the fight looked like it might be cancelled because Don King was in a contract dispute with Mayorga but that issue seems to be resolved. Adding to the slapdash nature of the promotion, some of the fighters on the card said they were asked only a week or two ago to participate, an unusual occurrence in boxing. And there is also the absurd notion of a fight between two past-their-prime fighters broadcast on pay-per-view for $49.95. It will probably have the lowest pay-per-view boxing audience of the year, if not ever.

The fight’s pretense goes something like this: Mosley and Mayorga fought seven years ago when they were still competitive boxers. Mosley knocked out Mayorga with one second left in the 12th and final round. It was a dramatic, but hardly legendary fight. Mosley then knocked out Antonio Margarito in the ninth round to win a welterweight title for the second time. Then age, injuries and two future Hall of Fame boxers derailed him. He started losing, including fights to Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao. He announced his retirement after losing to journeyman Anthony Mundine in 2013. Mayorga of Nicaragua has been much less active. He lost to Miguel Cotto in 2011. Then he fought in mixed martial arts. In 2014, he appeared to end his boxing career with a victory over Andrik Saralegui, also a journeyman.

Mosley and Mayorga first met in 2008. Saturday’s rematch carries less significance. Photograph: Gus Ruelas/AP

But now they are trying – in their own way – to stay relevant, and earn another payday.

The timing of the fight couldn’t be worse. Most boxing fans will be watching the highly anticipated featherweight match between Leo Santa Cruz and Abner Mares, which will be on ESPN and held at the Staples Center, also in Los Angeles, at the same time.

Mosley’s fledgling promotional company, run by “my girlfriend, executive vice president, and future wife”, Trista Pisani, has been attempting the most ham-handed ways to draw interest. She says she is “new to boxing” but “not new to business”. Pisani, 31, says she has been “a successful business owner since age 20 including owning a mortgage company and a clothing line.” According to Pisani’s IMDb profile she is also an actress and producer with credits for Man-Eater and Knockout.

The promotion has been at turns comical and strange, more small-town theater than sport. And the theater has been poorly acted and produced.

At Tuesday’s press conference, Mayorga, who is known for crazy pre-fight antics, stood up and talked about how he was more of a man than Mosley and directed a series of misogynistic statements at Pisani about showing Mosley “how it’s done”, a crude sexual innuendo. The audience didn’t greet the slight with very much shock because everyone knows that Mayorga will say anything, no matter how dumb, to draw attention to this misguided bout.

As some sort of farcical intimidation tactic, Mayorga then took off his “Presidente Daniel Ortega” T-shirt to reveal a rather pudgy body. Mosley, not inaccurately, would then call him “fat boy”. Papa Jack Mosley, Shane’s 70-year-old father and trainer, flexed his own bicep and, accurately, said he was in better shape. The fight is supposed to be a super welterweight bout, but judging by Mayorga’s love handles he appeared to be 20lbs over the 154lb limit.

Toward the end of the press conference, the two men did the traditional face-off. From a theater critic’s point of view, it went terribly wrong. For some unfathomable reason, Pisani bent over. Mayorga appeared to slap her buttocks. She shrieked. Mosley melodramatically pushed Mayorga. The two entourages jostled with each other. It was so painfully choreographed and pantomimed that the audience laughed, a press photographer was bent over in hysterics.

Tuesday’s final press conference between Mosley and Mayorga culminated with a staged confrontation.

How could it come to this for Mosley? Is this simply the predictable story of a boxer who can’t let go and continues to chase money?

To his credit, he is making an attempt to create a promotional company, and the startup needs to create an event to draw interest. In the last 12 months there has been a shift in the boxing hierarchy. Al Haymon’s Premier Boxing Champions signed dozens of fighters – many from Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions – and regularly showcase them on television. Golden Boy has been attempting to re-build its company. Top Rank, considered the elite promotional outfit, has been fighting off the challengers. With the growing competition in the US fight game, maybe there is an opportunity for another promotional company. But is this one it?

The Mosley-Mayorga promotion has been unabashedly borrowing techniques used by professional wrestling. At every media opportunity there has been a confrontation. When fighters in their prime resort to pre-fight fisticuffs it can sometimes seem plausible, but when guys in their 40s start doing it, it mostly looks ridiculous. And – let us remind ourselves – boxing is a sport.

Earlier in the build-up, during a Mosley photo shoot, Mayorga invaded the scene and trash-talked Mosley and the two allegedly become heated. At a press conference held in Las Vegas, Mayorga told Mosley to go to his house and drop off his stuff because after the Saturday’s fight Mosley would be going “straight to the cemetery”. Mayorga then puffed on a cigarette and blew smoke in Mosley’s face. Mosley slapped the cigarette from Mayorga’s mouth. Then the two men acted like they wanted to fight each other as handlers dramatically held them back. The promotion has attempted to use these confrontations, all on YouTube, to generate hype.

On Saturday they will presumably exchange real punches in the ring.