If everyone wants to get Floyd?s attention, rather than just hear themselves talk, ignoring him is the way to go?
It seems as if everyone wants Floyd Mayweather to fight Manny Pacquiao. Manny wants it to happen. Bob Arum wants it to happen. Oscar De La Hoya wants it to happen.HBO wants it to happen. Showtime wants it to happen. Freddie Roach, whose predictions fall short of the mark more often as not, says he ?thinks it?s gonna happen.? Even Mauricio Sulaiman wants it to happen and has released a statement in that regard.
Working without an English-speaking editor, Sulaiman issued a statement which reads, ?The fight the world has been waiting to see, the fight that the world wants to see. The WBC fully supports the promotion of this fight which will certainly break all existing records in many areas.
?The WBC has been supportive and has provided all flexibility for the fight to take place and hereby confirms that we will continue to do so. Manny Pacquiao was ranked the #1 mandatory challenger when he returned after his loss to Marquez, unfortunately a different path was taken, but today is another opportunity for this fight to happen.
?We encourage all parties to sit down and make it happen?just as they did for Lennox Lewis vs. Mike Tyson, which seemed impossible to put together, but they all sat down and made it happen. That fight was aired on pay-per-view via Showtime and HBO.?
Aside from the fact that the Lewis-Tyson fight, like the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight, was years past being relevant, that hasn?t kept everyone from imploring Mayweather to do what they want. For some, the begging and pleading is presumably for the good of boxing. For others, the elusive superfight is money in the bank.
But the wild card is, has been, and will always be Floyd Mayweather, who nobody tells what to do. Mayweather does what he wants when he wants (or not) and all the beseeching in the world falls on deaf ears. If he hears the entreaties, if he listens to the chorus of desire, he might be secretly pleased. But he knows he?s the straw that stirs the drink. He also knows he owes nothing to nobody.
Jumping on the bandwagon in the belief that pressuring Mayweather will lead to a fight with Pacquiao is an exercise in futility. It generates copy. It makes news (of a sort). But Mayweather can exercise more control by ignoring everyone, and control, be it inside or outside the ring, even more than money, is what he?s all about.
If everyone wants to get Mayweather?s attention, rather than just hear themselves talk, ignoring him is the way to go. There are many things Floyd doesn?t like, but being ignored tops the list.
