Instead of the Fight of the Century, the Feat of the Century.
With Floyd Mayweather Jnr in hibernation rather than in training for the world’s first $200million boxing match, Manny Pacquiao has to find another way of reconfirming his eminence as the greatest pound-for-pound boxer on the planet.
While Mayweather’s silence is not only deafening but incomprehensible, Pacquiao will attempt to go where no prizefighter has ever been close to going before – by winning a world title in his eighth weight division.
Already the only boxer to win world belts at seven poundages – from flyweight ever upwards – the newly elected Filipino congressman will now meet the controversial Antonio Margarito for the vacant WBC light-middleweight championship.
Whatever the truth about the collapse of rancorous negotiations begun under the dubious shadow of Team Mayweather’s insinuations about drug abuse, boxing has been deprived – at the very least until next year – of the event which would have captured the imagination of countless millions beyond its normal audience.
Since the readiness of the Pacman not only to get it on but to submit to more stringent dope testing is beyond reasonable doubt, the blame must fall on the Money Man.
Mayweather’s failure to respond to approaches from Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum – apparently made through the vitally interested third party of HBO television – is a mystery which remains unexplained.
Not least since the gifted American who made so much noise about wanting to prove himself greater than Pacquiao now appears uninterested in fighting before the spring of 2011, at the earliest.
By then, assuming Margarito falls this November 13, Mayweather will have been left trailing so far behind in terms of global recognition that a fight against Pacquiao will be his only hope of gaining that mythical pound-for-pound crown. That would hardly strengthen his hand upon any resumption of negotiations, especially since his last victory was against the sadly aged Shane Mosley.
While Margarito is not exactly Pacquiao’s dream rival, he is a live opponent whose past misconduct will add spice to another huge pay-night.
The Mexican’s license to fight in the US was suspended in January 2009 after a hard plastic substance was found in his hand-wrappings prior to a fight against Mosley.
New life: Pacquiao takes his seat in the Filipino congress
This aberration – which was blamed on one of his trainers – has interrupted a previously burgeoning career and if his fight with Pacquiao is to go ahead at the preferred venue of the MGM Grand Garden in Las Vegas then Margarito has to win his appeal to the Nevada State Athletic Commission for a provisional one-fight license.
If that fails, the fight is likely to move to a 22,000-capacity arena in Monterrey, the prosperous Mexican city which is currently caught up in that country?s murderous war against drugs trafficking.
As for Mayweather, this most skilful practitioner of boxing’s defensive arts will now find it increasingly difficult to refute all those who suspect that he is worried that the phenomenal speed, volume and power of Pacquiao?s punching might put a sudden end to his undefeated record.
What a pity.
