The latest news from the negotiating table is that the fight of the century between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao is almost finalized, and that the final details will be worked out later this week.
The unexpected portion of this news is that the fight might go ahead as early as March instead of the original date of May or an election postponed date sometime around September.
Now obviously as fans, everyone wants to see this fight as soon as possible, but realistically this new schedule only leaves about 2 months to promote and hype the fight. The reason that there are only really 2 months and not 3 is that the Christmas and new year periods are generally not good for promoting sporting events such as this one. Not to mention that advertising campaigns take a few weeks to make and get up and rolling anyway. The actual promotions might perhaps only start to begin in earnest mid way through January after allowing time for the official announcement of the fight date, and the holiday period to be over.
Obviously fans following the developments of the fight as well as Pacquiao’s fans in the Philippines will know about the fight, but the casual fans which a huge fight like this will want to take advantage of will need some time to get the fight into the public’s consciousness. Not to mention that the setting of the fight is still to be decided by the promoters, and a temporary stage built in Las Vegas might require a little extra notice to be completed.
In terms of training for a March fight, both fighters should have more than enough time to get themselves into peak shape. Three months is less than either usually like to have, although both are always in excellent shape coming into fights, and don’t tend to let themselves get out of shape between fights to any great extent.
Despite the fact that the fight could happen in March, there is always the worry that one of the fighters will pick up an injury in training, or that one or the other will insist on more than this amount of time to prepare. I would think that the March date will be better for Pacquiao than a later September date however, particularly if he is victorious in his May election campaign. A September fight for politician Pac-man would be even more difficult to train for than his fights are usually, not to mention the distraction of having another set or responsibilities to live up to at the same time as training.
