Fighting Manny Pacquiao -Is Floyd Mayweather's Only Option to Improve His Legacy?
AP, 26 Jan 2015
It’s not dead yet, but it sure feels like it’s dying.
The
Los Angeles Time’s Lance Pugmire reported Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao have been locked in talks—
again—for a potential superfight that would shatter all sorts of boxing revenue records, rising to the level of rival networks HBO and Showtime holding secret meetings on jointly broadcasting, according to ESPN.com’s Dan Rafael. But it feels like it’s about to fall apart again.
And judging by the reaction of fans and media,
one man will receive the lion’s share of the blame. At least from the mainstream of sports fans who aren’t hopelessly wedded to one side or the other.
Mayweather is a prodigious talent, and while there are two sides to every tale, the blame game almost doesn’t even matter anymore.
You can blame Floyd, or Manny, or Bob Arum or the Norse god Thor if you like, but at the end of the day, Mayweather is literally at the point where nothing but a Pacquiao showdown will cut it.
47-0.
World championships in five weight divisions.
Undisputed pound-for-pound king and the best man in history at using boxing as a vehicle for personal enrichment.
Ethan Miller/Getty Images
All of the above.
But does he want to go down as the guy who never proved his greatness against the man universally recognized as his top challenger? Does he want that asterisk to sit on his page in the history books like an ugly stain that allows people to call into question the depth of his contributions to the sport?
Fans of boxing certainly hope the answer to those two inquiries is a firm no, but there are fewer and fewer reasons for optimism with each hour that passes without definitive word of what’s happening.
Alex Ariza, Pacquiao’s former strength and conditioning coach who recently took a similar position with Mayweather, threw some cold water on the simmering fires on Thursday, per ABS/CBN:
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Mayweather-Pacquiao is] not going to happen. We’re fighting May 2nd but it’s not going to be Manny Pacquiao. Hopefully, Bob Arum will blow away in the wind or whatever. As soon as we get rid of him we can get it on.”
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Was Ariza, a controversial figure who was fired by Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach, authorized to speak on behalf of Mayweather?
Doubtful. That job is reserved for the man himself and, up until recently, his right-hand man Leonard Ellerbe.
Mayweather gave his first comments on the subject since it was reported Pacquiao’s side had agreed to terms last week to Shade 45 Radio;
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Everything that everybody is just insinuating, what everybody been saying on TV is false. It’s not true at all…
Do I want to fight Pacquiao? Absolutely! Are we negotiating? Absolutely! But has the fight been made? Not at all…Hopefully it’s Mayweather-Pacquiao. Of course we’re trying to make the fight happen between me and Pacquiao. Are we negotiating? Absolutely we are negotiating. But Pacquiao said that he agreed to everything. What did you agree to? You have no say so. You have a boss. That’s called Top Rank Promotions.
Hopefully we can make this fight happen. But once again, we have to look at his pay-per-view numbers. His last fight didn’t even do 300,000 homes. So let’s make this make sense. I mean, he did get knocked out not too long ago. No matter what you say, Floyd Mayweather is still winning. When they take shots at Floyd Mayweather, he’s still winning. He’s still making hundreds of millions.
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Let’s unpack all of that.
What people are reporting on TV is that Pacquiao has agreed to terms on the fight. The Filipino icon recently reiterated that point, and he took an uncustomary shot at Mayweather via Twitter'
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I can easily beat @FloydMayweather, I believe that.
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There are also rumors, long-speculated and reported on Twitter last week by ESPN.com senior boxing writer Dan Rafael, that a middleweight rematch between Mayweather and WBC/lineal 160-pound champion Miguel Cotto is imminent.
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Extremely strong chatter than Mayweather-Cotto 2 is imminent
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It tells you a lot about the dissatisfaction among boxing’s hardcore fanbase that a rematch with Cotto is treated as such a disappointment. Almost like it’s a fight unworthy of the name.
In a world without Pacquiao, this would be treated as a high-stakes contest with huge historical and legacy implications.
Cotto is noticeably better now than at the time of the first fight, having latched on to Roach like he was a life raft in the middle of the ocean, and a Mayweather win would give him a world title in a sixth weight class. More significantly, he’d become the first fighter to simultaneously hold titles in three separate weight divisions since the great Henry Armstrong.
Granted, Armstrong did it with far fewer available belts and weight divisions, but it would still be an impressive feather in Mayweather’s cap.
Al Bello/Getty Images
Does he want to fight Pacquiao?
Only one person knows the answer to that question.
Mayweather has been rather vocal on the subject in recent months, telling Showtime’s Steve Farhood he does in December, but words are just wind. Actions prove their value.
His claims that negotiations are ongoing might soothe some nervous fans just sitting around waiting for the other shoe to drop, but there are a few things here that don’t add up entirely.
Mayweather’s dislike for Arum and Top Rank is well documented. But to imply that Pacquiao has no say on the status of negotiations is simply not accurate, and besides, it was Arum, not Pacquiao, who stirred the pot by telling Iole they were on board with a 60-40 purse split, random blood testing and a May 2 fight in Las Vegas.
Comments on the specifics of the reported deal were wholly absent from this extensive interview. Was that on purpose or by accident?
You decide.
It’s hard to understand Mayweather’s obsession with Pacquiao’s pay-per-view numbers and drawing power. Well, it’s not, but the relevance to fans is zip.
Anyone who pays any sort of attention to the business realities of boxing knows that Floyd is the bigger box-office attraction. He’s participated in the two highest-grossing fights in boxing history—in 2007 with Oscar De La Hoya and 2013 with Canelo Alvarez—and deserves a higher cut of the purse.
Beyond a shadow of a doubt.
But how far down the rabbit hole does this go? The 60-40 purse split reported by Iole seems like a fair number—Pacquiao has come down from 55-45 in 2012—and, either way, fans simply don’t care about this stuff.
If you’re one of Mayweather’s rabid defenders, you’re going to eat this stuff up. But if you’re looking at it with any sense of detachment, just hoping the two will finally trade fists and not words, you can’t help but shake your head.
Mayweather is indisputably right about one thing.
He does keep winning, and he does keep making millions.
But there are different types of winning.
Winning in the ring is what Mayweather does best, but beating anyone but Pacquiao, by this point, is largely meaningless.
Winning the perception battle is a whole different question, and it’s the one place where Floyd’s unblemished record takes a hit.
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