Fans Should Focus on Pacquiao-Marquez III, and not the Pacquiao-Mayweather Pipe Dream
If Floyd Mayweather’s controversial victory over Victor Ortiz and his subsequent verbal assault on Larry Merchant have accomplished anything, it is stealing the thunder from the build-up to Manny Pacquiao vs. Juan Manuel Marquez III, because now the Mayweather vs. Pacquiao fever has been brought back to a boil. I suspect that was Mayweather’s intention all along, since he could not predict sucker punching Ortiz into an early knockout, and might have been planning on the public dissing of Larry Merchant to create controversy. As it is, Mayweather scored a double whammy, much to the detriment of a long-anticipated rubber match between two classic rivals, Pacquiao and Marquez.
One can only hope that the focus of the boxing media will shift back to where it should be — squarely on Pacquiao vs. Marquez III — during the course of October. In the meantime, Mayweather vs. Pacquiao speculation is now on the front burner, so let’s go back to the dead horse of this mega-fight’s prospects and give it another beating.
Will This Fight Even Happen?
Many boxing analysts consider the idea of Mayweather vs. Pacquiao to be an inevitable, foregone conclusion, because the sheer economic and dramatic logic of the sport always drives such men together. Sadly, this is far from the truth, and great fighters do not always meet in the ring even when the route is clear and the money is right. I need only point to the great missed main event of my teen-aged years, Riddick Bowe vs. Lennox Lewis, to prove that.
Just because every sports fan on the planet wants this fight to happen, no political obstacles block the fight, and both men will earn career-high paydays if the fight should happen does not mean the fight will happen. None of that matters to Floyd Mayweather, you see. The only thing that matters to Pretty Boy is his own inflated sense of self-worth.
Pacfans prefer to accuse Mayweather of cowardice, but I believe it has more to do with Mayweather’s ego. In Mayweather’s insecure mind, he has no equals, and he therefore has no intention of acknowledging Manny Pacquiao as a peer. The entire steroid testing flap was always about Mayweather forcing Pacquaio down on bended knee to plead for the privilege of making a fight, and I maintain that until Pacquaio bows and kisses Mayweather’s bling-bling ring in some clearly demonstrable way, Mayweather won’t willingly go along. If Mayweather won’t consent to fight Pacquiao, he must be coerced, and the only source of coercion available is financial need.
I still believe the only thing that might get Mayweather and Pacquiao into the same ring (short of Pacquiao’s prostration) is the possibility that Mayweather might run out of money. Mayweather lives a profligate lifestyle, has plenty of parasitic family members and hangers-on, and is engaged in multiple legal battles, so he must blow through cash like a typhoon. However, the Ortiz bout earned Mayweather a minimum of $25 million [and an estimated final tally of $40 million+].
While Pacquiao is clearly Mayweather’s most lucrative potential opponent, Pretty Boy can still make plenty of money fighting other guys. A fight with Andre Berto or (best of all) Amir Khan in 2012 will make all the money he needs to stay liquid well into 2013. Mayweather could make plenty of scratch fighting Khan, then Berto, and then maybe even a rematch with Ortiz or a bout with a new welterweight contender. Even if he fights only once per year, that keeps Mayweather in the money until sometime after 2015!
The fact is that, barring a bad loss, Mayweather doesn’t need Manny Pacquiao to make enough money to pay his bills. Likewise, Pacquiao doesn’t need Mayweather to make big paydays, and it is unlikely Pacquiao will consent to humiliating himself just to appease Mayweather’s gargantuan ego. Under those circumstances, I think we are all holding our breath to no purpose in speculating about Pretty Boy vs. Pacman. I’m going back to salivating over Pacman vs. Juan Manuel Marquez.
