Every man has his own fear, whether it is for the unknown or the very mundane.
How many of us cringe at the sound of a blade cutting through between your upper and lower incisors?
How many of us shudder at being at the edge of a 100-storey building looking down?
Which brings us to Floyd Mayweather Jr., the namesake son of the (in)famous father.
Floyd seems to be afflicted by the inordinate fear of absorbing punishment even as his immaculate boxing record continues to pile up victories and as he begins to undergo the inevitable ageing process.
It is called poeniphobia ? fear of punishment.
He likewise looks lost when attention is no longer directed to him.
No wonder he kept on bragging that he is the greatest, he is the biggest draw in boxing and that all roads lead to him.
In the index of phobia, fear of being left alone is called monophobia and isolophobia.
When he retired after the Ricky Hatton fight, nobody really believed he is done with boxing. Floyd wants attention, and he lives on and by it. No sooner than he was replaced and overtaken by Manny Pacquiao as the world?s best pound for pound boxer, Floyd made a comeback and immediately proclaimed himself the best in boxing.
For all his self-proclaimed greatness, however, there is one fear that Floyd hates and avoids most ? kakorrhaphiophobia, rather too greek for everyone of us. It is his Floyd?s aversion to defeat that is keeping him from answering the popular clamor of fighting Manny and settling the issue who is the best in the business in their generation.
Floyd simply has this fetish for unblemished record that even for all the gold at Fort Knox, he would rather avoid the one man that is capable of inflicting him harm and dealing him his first defeat.
Men with huge ego will crumble when they are at the receiving end of punishment. When they become the bully?s
victim. When they become the hunted rather than the hunter. When they become the prey. When a potential nemesis casts serious doubt about his self-proclaimed prowess.
It is this fear that is depriving boxing fans from witnessing and seeing an epic fight ? one for the ages.
While a Mayweather-Pacquiao match-up is anybody?s pick, Floyd could end up favorite on fight night.
The two have contrasting fighting styles. To use the worn out clich? ? it is an unstoppable force colliding with an immovable object when these two fighters answer the call.
Both will tread an unknown territory if they agree to fight each other.
Floyd has not fought anyone as fast as him, if not faster.
Manny has never met a pure boxer and a defensive specialist as Floyd.
It is this intriguing match-up that is whetting the appetite of boxing fans.
Unfortunately, Floyd would rather keep his record spotless.
