In a couple of weeks, Winky Wright returns to the ring from over a year and a half off from the ring. It’s not being treated like a comeback or any other excuse for hyperbole. It’s just the latest fight for a fighter who was away awhile.
Floyd Mayweather Jr. has been out of the ring for a little more than a year. He should be back in less time than Wright was gone if the flurry of reports are true. Yet, the reaction of some in the boxing media is coming off like his first steps back will be momentous, like he’s been away years.
There are a number of differences between Wright and Mayweather of course. Mayweather left at the top of his game, undefeated and the welterweight champion of the world. Wright was last seen in a forgettable losing effort to Bernard Hopkins.
There is another distinct element which cannot be ignored.
Wright never said he was retired.
Mayweather did.
And for some reason, no matter how many times fight followers are given the Pavlovian test which says to always doubt such an announcement, the headlines are rich with over reaction.
Don’t take this wrong. It is exciting that one of the game’s top draws, and top talents, is resuming his career. However, for anyone out there who thought Mayweather was seriously never fighting again, was walking away from the millions of dollars and mainstream attention he spent years to attain, there are only three words which suffice:
You got played.
Seriously.
While technically not even out of retirement yet, the handwriting on the wall indicates a Money return as soon as the summer and as late as the fall of this year. Given the sparse in-ring schedules most star fighters keep these days, Mayweather’s time out of the ring should be called what it is.
An extended vacation.
It won’t be though. “Extended vacation’ lacks the drama, the story ability, of an ended retirement. Boxing has long been a sport about what tales it can tell and, more importantly, what tales it can sell. The retirement card, as proven by Sugar Ray Leonard in the 1980s and, before him, Muhammad Ali in the 1970s, can boost gate and add an element of the unknown.
Will he be rusty?
Does he still have the desire?
How much will fans pay to find out?
Survey says the last question is the one which matters.
What makes all of this recent chatter so comical, if and when the big return commences, is how telegraphed it all was from the start. Following his win over Oscar De La Hoya in May 2007, Mayweather announced he was walking away from the game only to return right away for a Ricky Hatton showdown. Notably, the retirement did not include a forsaking of his claim to the welterweight crown, a clear sign he’d continue.
Following the knockout win of Ricky Hatton in December 2007, Mayweather laid out what he wanted. As noted by BoxingScene’s David Greisman in the post-Hatton aftermath, Floyd stated, “I need a vacation. … I’ve done what I had to do.” Greisman also noted at the time, “Mayweather says he will take two years off, with 2008 and 2009 dedicated to the next phase in his life.”
With those thoughts already made public, Mayweather flirted with a rematch against De La Hoya and co-headlined the pop culture spectacle that is Wrestlemania in 2008 before going an extra step. He handed in his WBC and Ring Magazine welterweight title belts and walked away. Unlike the first De La Hoya retirement, or even the one before it following his 2006 win over Carlos Baldomir, the style of the announcement gave it traction.
So too did not signing a fight immediately after giving up the game.
And yet here he is, likely to resume fisticuffs inside of two years since the Hatton win, and its headline stuff. None of the headlines read “Floyd doing what he said he was going to do,” or “Mayweather lives up to his word,” or even “Mayweather returning slightly sooner than originally indicated.”
As a tip of the hat, one must note, its brilliant stuff. Mayweather has become the master of media manipulation in his time, commanding attention for everything short of breaking wind. This column isn’t at all claiming to be above it. Even with full sight of the puppeteer’s strings, the dance commences with each letter, comma and vowel.
Boxing in 2009 has been a fun ride so far. However, those who grew up in earlier times can remember what it was like to not have to look for people to talk about the fights with. They remember the 1980s or times before, when big fights, and big stars, happened often.
The occasions for it today are fewer. It may not always be this way, but for now it remains. Mayweather is a trigger which sets things off and makes the sport feel bigger.
There’s a good feeling when folks who never watch suddenly find the resident boxing guy and turn him into the center of the water cooler universe for a day. They can look forward to being that guy quite a bit as the specifics of the resumed Mayweather career, and the build to a possible Manny Pacquiao fight, begin.
They can also look forward to the next time Mayweather steps into the ring while we wait to see what he does next to make everyone jump on cue.
