Every time Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather, Jr. fight someone besides the other, they’re still fighting. Maybe it’s explicit, with direct verbal swipes; maybe it’s a conversation where they’re talking past one another; maybe it’s a proxy war; maybe it’s fans waging battles in boxing debates on behalf of their favorite of the pair. The two main things they’re always fighting for is to determine who is the bigger star, and for the crown worn by the world’s best boxer. It doesn’t matter how tiresome it’s become that they don’t just make a welterweight mega-fight already. You can’t mention anything Pacquiao is doing without mentioning Mayweather, and you can’t mention anything Mayweather is doing without mentioning Pacquiao. Like two physics-defying magnets, they are simultaneously drawn and repelled to one another, doomed seemingly forever to this cycle of never meeting, always fighting from afar.
That’s the case Saturday when Pacquiao and Marquez meet for the third time. But there’s more at stake than just the latest wrinkles in the Pacquiao-Mayweather rivalry. There is also a score to settle; a career potentially on the line; the reputation of a historic trilogy; and depending on how things go, maybe Pacquiao-Marquez IV.
Pacquiao-Mayweather
However you look at it, Pacquiao and Mayweather are #1-#2, in whatever order, when it comes to both stardom and pound-for-pound supremacy. My view is that Pacquiao’s resume is better, so he’s my #1 P4P, but Mayweather very well might be the better talent; I constantly sway back and forth on who would win between the two if they fought. Resume-wise, Mayweather has gained some ground on Pacquiao as he’s fought the better competition between the two of late, but he also doesn’t fight often enough to be in a position to definitively overtake Pacquiao. On the other end, Pacquiao is the bigger star worldwide because of his rabid Filipino following, but Mayweather is the bigger star in the United States based on his generally better pay-per-view sales — although there, in a reversal, Pacquiao could be gaining ground on Mayweather.
Where they have shared common opponents — and Marquez fits the bill — comparisons in both categories are inevitable. Pacquiao struggled to go 1-0-1 against Marquez, while Mayweather made Marquez look ordinary in 2010, but Mayweather-Marquez was at a weight two divisions higher at 144 pounds where he was completely unproven, and Pacquiao against Marquez had not yet developed into the all-around fighter his is now. Pacquiao broke pay-per-view records for smaller fighters against Marquez in their rematch, doing 400,000, the most for any fight ever below welterweight. Mayweather did 1 million buys, obviously a superior figure.
