“This one storm is going to change the face of our planet. When this storm is over, we’ll be in a new ice age. My God.” – Professor Jack Hall, “The Day After Tomorrow”
Thank heavens the hyperbolic professor didn’t have an internet connection and an interest in boxing these last 40 days. Who knows how many worlds he might have seen ending? But then, if he’d had those things there’s an outside chance his carrying on might have been ridiculous enough for us to snicker, find our equilibrium and realize that – much as in the poorly scripted case above – the end of the world is not nigh.
Nor is the end of boxing. Nor – mercilessly enough – is the end of negotiations for Manny Pacquiao to fight Floyd Mayweather and determine the mythical pound-for-pound titlist of 2010. Soft deadlines have passed. Hard deadlines have come and gone. New Year’s Day is in the books. Both sides are unwilling to budge. And with March 13 looming but 68 days from here, there’s not nearly enough time to fill Cowboys Stadium!
Get a hold of yourself. This fight was never going anywhere but Las Vegas. With MGM Grand the settled site for Pacquiao-Mayweather, there are no tickets to sell; attracting pay-per-viewers is the only point of the promotion. That means HBO’s “24/7” program is the de facto promoter and the ultimate deadline needn’t come before Feb. 1.
That could be the last word in optimism if optimism were warranted. It isn’t.
Anyone reading this column cares enough about our sport to cast a wary eye at outsiders who assure us boxing’s future relies on this fight coming off. I know, I know. We finally had the New York Times and Wall Street Journal’s validation. Well, so long as this fight looked doable, it behooved us all to agree this was the most important happening of the millennium. Now that Pacquiao-Mayweather in Texas has gone the way of Pacquiao-Valero in Macao, though, ask yourself: How does this fight affect me?
Manny Pacquiao is considered the world’s best fighter. Floyd Mayweather is considered the world’s second-best fighter. If they were to fight, those positions would likely switch. How is that good for boxing?
Pacquiao is a charismatic action fighter who’s created a market for prizefighting in the Philippines and made it popular as ever throughout Asia. Mayweather is a foul-mouthed defensive specialist whose fights lose more fans than they gain. Pacquiao is good for boxing. Mayweather is good for Mayweather.
Mayweather is also too smart by half, this time. He’s devised a strategy of implying Pacquiao has been cheating, without exactly saying it. He didn’t want fair play; he wanted another psychological advantage over another opponent. He knew Pacquiao would consider the blood testing intrusive. He knew in Pacquiao’s mind it would be “Money May” himself reaching in those veins and doing God knows what with the blood.
Hey, as an American immune to superstition, I’m with Mayweather on the testing. I’d probably agree to the testing even if I did have something to hide – betting on the testers’ incompetence. But most Filipinos would refuse blood tests even if they had nothing to hide.
If the fight’s off because neither side flinches on blood tests, Pacquiao remains the world’s best fighter. Mayweather holds down the two spot. Works for me.
But let’s hope it doesn’t work for Mayweather. Let’s hope being a runner-up enkindles him enough to declare war on the welterweight division, demand the head of whoever wins the upcoming match between Shane Mosley and Andre Berto, and then issue beatings to Joshua Clottey, Miguel Cotto and Luis Collazo.
Wait, stop laughing.
A more likely scenario of course is that Mayweather will pursue dwindling-money fights with old guys and b-level talents until he, too, becomes an old guy. If that happens, Mayweather’s ultimate legacy will look like this: Top 10 talent, Top 100 resume.
Oh, no it won’t! I’ll remind the world till the day I die that Pacquiao ducked him by refusing blood tests!
No, you won’t. Someday you’ll be married with kids and a full-time job and no more than an hour of every week for message boards. Then, only Mayweather’s record of actual fights will matter, and some youngster half your age will say: “Not one prime hall-of-famer on that 50-0 record.”
Based on their past exploits, we can assume Pacquiao really wants this fight, Mayweather sort of wants this fight, Golden Boy Promotions really wants this fight, and Top Rank sort of wants this fight. Though they share similar levels of enthusiasm, Mayweather is wrong and Top Rank is right – coincidentally, for the same reason:
If anyone can solve Manny Pacquiao, it’s Floyd Mayweather.
Pacquiao and his millions of fans don’t know this. Mayweather and his dozens of fans do. And so, one assumes, do a few people in Top Rank – the company that developed Mayweather before it developed Pacquiao. Top Rank won’t jeopardize the Pacman party till it gets plenty more concessions at the negotiating table.
If Pacquiao-Mayweather does happen, though, it will be an event. The New York Times will be there. The undercard will be unwatchable. The fight itself will be dull. Mayweather will hold the sport of boxing hostage – whupping the daylights out of the Matty Hattons of the world – for five more years. And we’ll all be $100 million richer.
No we won’t. Yet, that’s the final reason why many seem to think they have a vested interest in this fight happening: Because it will make a lot of money. Money for whom? In prizefighting the money distributes like the talent on a super-fight’s marquee: 90 percent in the top 10 percent.
So, dry your eyes. And remember, less money in boxing, not more, is what made 2009 so much better than 2008.
Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter.com/bartbarry
