SONAHR: Halifax, Nova Scotia – February 22, 2015 – Ordinarily, British challenger Martin Murray?s game effort on Saturday against WBA middleweight champion (?super? version) Gennady Golovkin would have provided a major talking point for fight fans. Murray managed to make it into the 11th round with Golovkin, which is farther than anyone else has managed to go against the hard-punching, undefeated native of Kazakhstan in a title bout.
But even if Murray had somehow pulled off an unthinkable upset over Golovkin, the significance of that occurrence would have been overshadowed by an announcement that was made the day before the middleweights met in the ring.
By now, y?all know what that announcement was. The long anticipated mega-super-duper welterweight showdown between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao is on, scheduled for May 2 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas! At last, after five years of fits and starts, doubts and disappointments, hope and despair, the most lucrative match of all time is finally going to happen. This time, Lucy has allowed Charlie Brown to kick the football.
Ideally, Pacquiao and Mayweather should have met back in 2010, when both fighters were still at their physical peak. As it is, holding the fight this year is cutting close to their best-before dates. Mayweather will be 38 years old this week, and Pacquiao is 36. It is a tribute to their skill and determination that they continue to hold the top two spots in most pound-for-pound rankings. So, even though each man may have slipped somewhat since 2010, they?re still the best in the world, and when the bell sounds for the first round on May 2, it will mark the beginning of the Fight of the 21st Century thus far.
The numbers involved are mind-boggling. When all the proceeds are tallied, Mayweather?s take could amount to as much as $120 million, while Pacquiao will have to be content with a mere $80 million. Compare that with the $2.5 million Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier each made for their first fight back in 1971. Even taking inflation into account, the wealth that will be generated by Pacquiao-Mayweather is to Ali-Frazier I what Bill Gates?s net worth is to the contents of a child?s piggybank.
So, why have these humongous bushels of bucks been sitting on the table for such a long time? Only Mayweather can answer that question. Ever since the drug-testing issue that derailed the proposed 2010 but was resolved, it has seemed that Pacquiao was the one more willing to make the fight. Mayweather repeatedly blew off the possibility, preferring to rake in multi-millions fighting lesser foes.
As it is now, Manny is willing to take the short end of the purse, even though a 50-50 split a la Ali-Frazier would have been more than fair to both men. Pacquiao appears to be prepared to allow Mayweather to win concessions outside the ring in order to get to Floyd inside the squared circle.
As for Mayweather, he may well have agreed to the fight because he views Pacquiao as ripe for the taking. If that?s the case, then he must have seen something in Pacquiao?s recent beatdown of Chris Algieri that no one else saw ? some sort of flaw he feels he can exploit. Whether or not Pacquiao will allow him to take advantage of such a vulnerability ? if it exists ? remains to be seen.
Kudos are in order to both camps for putting this fight together while it remains relevant. Whether or not the contest lives up to its inevitable hype, failure to make Pacquiao-Mayweather happen would have been an abysmal fiasco for the fight game.
May 2 cannot arrive soon enough.
