LAS VEGAS ? The scene was Copacabana nightclub in Manhattan, as spring turned to summer 2005. It was late on a weekday morning, as quiet a time as you can get at the historic old music and dance hall. Then, Floyd Mayweather showed up unexpectedly.
The fight was over before the press conference began.
Mayweather fights Manny Pacquiao on Saturday night, and neither seems to have shrunk from the moment. They will fight in the same ring, before the same-sized crowd, in the same venue where each has fought numerous times. They just haven’t stared across at each other before.
They haven’t seen much of each other throughout this promotion, either.
Already this week, for a variety of reasons, some better than others, Mayweather and Pacquiao have conducted separate arrival ceremonies at separate hotels, separately timed question-and-answer segments at the same press conference, and generally been kept separate except for the only four times they are contractually committed to appear together: Last month’s kickoff press conference in Los Angeles; Wednesday’s final press conference at a theater in MGM Grand; Friday’s weigh-in; and when the bell rings on their megafight.
There is a template for this in Mayweather’s past.
Ten years ago, Mayweather fought the late Arturo Gatti in his first pay-per-view main event, at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, N.J., a promotion that was extraordinary for several reasons.
Then, as with Mayweather-Pacquiao now, there were two promoters with two separate interests. Top Rank, then promoting Mayweather, was pushing its fighter into position to fight for Gatti’s World Boxing Council super lightweight title. Main Events promoted Gatti and didn’t want anything to do with the fight, knew it was a losing proposition, but had two major problems: Gatti wanted it, and Mayweather was his mandatory challenger.
Then, as now, making the fight was excruciating. Mayweather won an eliminator over DeMarcus Corley in 2004, but a lingering court case related to a 2003 assault at a Grand Rapids bar gave Main Events some leverage. Mayweather was forced to fight a second eliminator, in 2005 against Henry Bruseles, and to resolve his misdemeanor back in Michigan by accepting a plea arrangement before Main Events’ attorney, Pat English, would advise his company to sign off on the fight.
Then, as now, the narrative turned naturally to good (Gatti) vs. evil (Mayweather), years before the domestic case that sent Mayweather to jail for nine weeks in 2012. Pacquiao on Wednesday said that after fighting Mayweather, he wants “to share my faith with him.”
First, they have 12 rounds or less to engage.
When it was Mayweather-Gatti, the fight ended at Copacabana. Floyd Mayweather stormed onto the stage in 2005, interrupting Arturo Gatti’s press conference for their fight. AP Photo
Main Events had taken extraordinary measures to keep Mayweather and Gatti separate, including separate weigh-ins the night before the fight. It also arranged that Gatti’s press conference at Copacabana be conducted from 11 a.m.-noon, then Mayweather’s from 1-2 p.m., three days before the fight. The media would have a full hour for a buffet lunch in between.
But Mayweather was 25 minutes early for his press conference — words never used before or since — and Gatti 40 minutes late.
Mayweather used the intentional overlap to storm the stage, find his placard stashed behind the dais and place it in front of him, remove an outer shirt and flex his muscles, then race off the stage to the buffet line where he yelled that Gatti was a “paper champion” while inspecting the spread, and ordered Gatti’s supporters out of the room, bellowing that he was “king of all kings and don of all dons.”
Gatti said, “I’m knocking you the (blank) out Saturday night,” and stalked out of his own press conference.
If Gatti had anything between his ears that could have sustained him through his obvious shortcomings against Mayweather, it vanished that day.
Three nights later, Gatti lasted six rounds — half the fight — before his corner stopped it.
It was a different era, 10 years ago, three time zones away, with a $44.95 pay-per-view price and a 28-year-old Mayweather at his athletic peak. But then, as with Pacquiao today, the less the other side sees of Mayweather, the better they seem to think it is.
Leonard Ellerbe, CEO of Mayweather Promotions, recognized the similarities.
“Main Events never wanted to put Floyd around him,” Ellerbe said of Gatti. “And trust and believe this, the less contact that these two can have, Floyd and Manny, that’s what the other side wants. They purposely didn’t want Manny to be in Floyd’s presence, where Floyd could maybe shake his confidence.”
A decade after pursuing Gatti on Mayweather’s behalf, Bob Arum, now promoting against Mayweather, acknowledges he would not have made this week’s blockbuster under these terms, giving up promoter-of-record status and a 60-percent cut. He called it “promotional hell,” when asked about a rematch. But Arum also has a fiduciary responsibility to his fighter, and Pacquiao wanted to fight Mayweather and accepted the conditions. Manny Pacquiao hosted his own fan rally at Mandalay Bay instead of participating in customary arrival at MGM Grand. Josh Slagter | MLive.com
When it came time to have Pacquiao help the venue by participating in the grand-arrival ceremony Tuesday, he didn’t, opting for a pep rally and separate press conference at Mandalay Bay instead.
Many attributed Pacquiao’s absence to Arum’s feud with MGM Grand Entertainment president Richard Sturm. Arum said he wanted Pacquiao in his own element, surrounded by his own fans, and emphasized that Mandalay Bay is, in fact, an MGM Resorts property.
Ellerbe insisted there is more to it, though.
HBO typically does a “Face Off” segment in advance of its major fights, and while Mayweather is a Showtime fighter and the pay-per-view is being jointly produced, he agreed to participate.
Ellerbe said he was with Mark Taffet, HBO senior vice president of sports operations and pay-per-view, when the call came from a Top Rank official to declare Pacquiao wouldn’t be there.
“We were at the commercial shoot because both guys were scheduled to face off,” Ellerbe said. “Mark Taffet got the call. I happened to be standing there. They said no, they wouldn’t be there, (then asked) ‘What time is Mayweather leaving? We want to show up later.'”
The separate question-and-answer periods for the two fighters at Wednesday’s press conference made sense logistically. There are so many media it would have been difficult to accommodate everyone without splitting up the fighters.
Yet the similarities to Gatti remained. Ten years ago, there was little doubt that he recognized his team’s segregation efforts for just what they were, a lack a confidence. When the bright lights came on, the magnitude of the challenge warped his performance.
Manny Pacquiao wants to share his faith in God with Floyd Mayweather Speaking at Wednesday’s final press conference, Pacquiao takes pride in being an inspiration for others in the Philippines. Pacquiao is a far more advanced athlete than Gatti. But he is not fighting a 28-year-old Mayweather, and to what extent there was an effort here to divide the fighters, it should not have been necessary against the 38-year-old version.
“I’m close to that big four-oh,” Mayweather said. “I’m very, very close. So I look at things totally different. I don’t have to come here and bash Manny Pacquiao. I don’t have to come here and bash Freddie Roach. I know what I can do. I know what I bring to the table.”
Everyone knows, and it had a lot to do with why Mayweather won’t see much of Pacquiao until the bright lights come on Saturday night.
The question then becomes how much more Pacquiao brings to the table than Gatti when reality strikes and Mayweather stands in the opposite corner after a week spent largely trying to avoid that inevitability.
