Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao were at an impasse. Accusations flew back and forth between their two teams. Their fans abused one another in online forums. It was a war alright, but one of words. The two fighters’ fists remained firmly unclenched.
[Pictured: A little more of this type of agreement between Floyd Mayweather and Bob Arum could have given us this fight 5 years earlier].
Mayweather and Pacquiao was the fight everyone wanted to see. Pacquiao had just beat down Miguel Cotto in a consummate performance. Mayweather was back from retirement and wanted to reclaim his place atop the sport’s hierarchy. It felt like it had to happen. How could it not – with hundreds of millions of dollars on the line, and an insatiable demand from the public?
Yet, five years ago, when Mayweather vs. Pacquiao truly should have happened, it didn’t. It is, perhaps, the greatest fight that never happened.
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All the arguments were, of course, hot air. First ESPN reported that Pacquiao had signed a contract to fight Mayweather. Team Pacquiao quickly renounced the claim.
Then, it was stipulated that Mayweather wanted Pacquiao to do Olympic-style drug testing. Freddie Roach stated that this was not an issue, but within the same month (December 2009) Bob Arum (Pacquiao’s promoter) announced that his fighter had not agreed to the demands and that the fight was off.
The reason Arum gave was that Mayweather wanted blood tests on the day of the weigh-in and claimed that Pacquiao had problems giving blood that close to a fight.
The terms team Pacquiao had initially proposed included a 30-day cut-off for blood testing, meaning no blood would be taken within the 30-day period prior to the fight. Video then emerged from Pacquiao’s training for his fight with Ricky Hatton of him giving blood 24 days prior to the fight.
With the specter of a genuine superfight for the ages on the horizon, the air wasn’t filled with excitement, but confusion. The fighters agreed to disagree and signed to fight other opponents. Pacquiao would take on Joshua Clottey, Mayweather would fight Shane Mosley. The latter was better than the former, but neither was a compelling fight, and certainly, neither was a mega-fight.
This was the first round of disagreement between the pair in a long-running saga that ultimately delayed what would have been one of the greatest fights of all time for five years. Now, although we stand just weeks away from seeing the fight finally take place, there is an undoubted melancholy at having had to wait till both were nearer the ends of their careers rather than their primes for it to happen.
Only time will tell if the fight lives up to its mammoth billing. At worst, it will be a magnificent event, though even then it is an event most cannot afford.
Neither Mayweather or Pacquiao are what they were five years ago and that the fight didn’t happen at its peak can only be blamed on them. As individuals they were unable or unwilling to put their egos aside and cooperate and, as a result, boxing missed out.
