LAS VEGAS ? In terms of boxing hype, it is hard to make a bolder claim than promoting a bout as the ?Fight of the Century.? What if it happens again? The ?Fight of the Millennium??
Manny Pacquiao is back in Las Vegas this week, with Wednesday marking 18 months since the snooze-fest showdown between the Filipino superstar and Floyd Mayweather.
The backlash from that fight, a slow and uninspiring Mayweather points victory, came in swiftly and has lingered since. The event made both men even filthier with rich, but boxing was poorer for the spectacle, having delivered a substandard product to the biggest pay-per-view audience in history.
VARGAS ON BEATING PACQUIAO
Now, in the buildup to Pacquiao?s clash with Jessie Vargas at the Thomas and Mack Center on Saturday, there are rumblings about a Pacquiao-Mayweather rematch.
Mayweather has twice visited Freddie Roach?s Wildcard Gym in Los Angeles where Pacquiao conducts his fistic tune-ups. Pacquiao and Roach have spoken of their wish to have another crack at Mayweather, insisting they were shortchanged by a shoulder injury last time around. Mayweather continues to drop hints across social media that his retirement is far from permanent.
And money talks loud enough in boxing to drown out the doubters, loud enough to overcome all the reasons why it shouldn?t happen.
But please, no rematch. Once was enough. Mayweather and Pacquiao are the standout stars of their generation, but having danced around each other for years without coming to an agreement for a fight, they had their chance to impress and blew it.
It should have been boxing?s greatest advertisement and its most triumphant night since the days of mass interest decades ago. Instead, it was a horrible fight devoid of drama. Now, with Pacquiao turning 38 next month and Mayweather already 39, there is no reason to believe a second go would be any better at all, let alone a classic.
Given the damage the initial contest did to boxing, a sport that has found many of its followers cut and run for mixed martial arts, there is little appetite for an occasion that would be designed purely to further swell the pocketbooks of the men involved.
WHY PACQUIAO HASN?T WON BY KO SINCE 2009
Pay-per-view numbers for boxing have dimmed across the board this year and it is easy to look at why. The whole PPV model hinges on the public perception that what they are forking out for is something special, a higher standard of entertainment to match the price demanded.
The crossover audience came into the boxing world and cheerily parted with $100 to take a look around in May 2015. When it got there, it didn?t much like what it saw.
On Saturday night Pacquiao will take on WBO welterweight titleholder Vargas, a younger, bigger, rangier opponent, who should not be taken lightly. Yet it is clear the Pacquiao camp has at least one eye looking to a do-over with Mayweather. Roach went as far as to suggest that Pacquiao needs to knock out Vargas in order to build interest in seeing him face Mayweather again.
Realistically, they would be better served by concentrating on the here and now, especially with Pacquiao?s political career firmly underway and with the end of his time in boxing looming large.
The ideal time for a Mayweather/Pacquiao fight was 2009, when both fighters were at the peak of their powers but negotiations fell through, not 2015, when it finally took place.
And not now, or next year, or whenever they feel enough time has expired for the public to forget being ripped off.
