There was a definite moment when I felt that a Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao fight was sure to happen. It was when I was standing in the media room of the MGM Grand shortly after Floyd?s victory over Shane Mosley in Las Vegas and watching the Grand Rapids fighter field questions from the press. Mayweather had overcome a rocky second round before dominating the rest of the fight and he seemed genuinely enthused about his performance and what his future held.
Floyd talked to the press about how grueling his training camp was for the Mosley bout. He told everyone that he had been hurt worse by Zab Judah and DeMarcus ?Chop Chop? Corley than he was when he was clipped with that viper like right from Shane in the second stanza. He told everyone that he would consider the possibility of facing off with middleweight champion Sergio Martinez, who had dethroned Kelly Pavlik two weeks prior. And of course Mayweather let everyone in the room know that he was still open to a mouthwatering clash with Manny Pacquiao.
<--- Slideshow: Telling images of Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao
The two fighters had been linked together ever since Mayweather made his return to the sport in September of last year with his whitewashing of proud Mexican Juan Manuel Marquez. Two months later Pacquiao would soundly defeat Miguel Cotto under the bright lights of Las Vegas to capture the WBO welterweight crown and the chants of ?We want Floyd? that echoed throughout the MGM arena underlined the enthusiasm that everyone had towards the bout.
The first round of negotiations between the representatives of Pacquiao and Mayweather dissolved when Floyd insisted that the two fighters undergo a strenuous Olympic Style drug testing protocol leading up to 14 days before the fight, a proposition that Pacquiao was not on board for. The Filipino pugilist would set his sights on Accra, Ghana?s Joshua Clottey and Mayweather decided to square off with Mosley, as the Pomona fighter?s schedule had become free after Andre Berto withdrew from their January face off.
The drug testing stance from each fighter seemed to be an issue that neither man would budge on and hopes of the world?s two best fighters facing off were soon dampened. But hearing Floyd speak after the Mosley affair, one couldn?t help but latch onto his seemingly sincere nature of wanting to make the fight happen. Floyd had just delivered one of his finest performances against one of this generation?s best fighters in Mosley and his courage and ambition seemed to be in abundance.
Fast forward nearly six months later and Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao?s fighting days may be coming to an anticlimactic end.
Each man has their own reasons and personal issues as to why boxing could likely be on their backburner in due time. Mayweather is facing a November 9th date in court in which he will be facing various charges of larceny and misdemeanors stemming from a September 10th scuffle with the mother of three of his children, Josie Harris. Mayweather is facing up to 34 years in prison for all of the charges.
Four days later Pacquiao will set foot inside Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas as he guns for the vacant WBC junior middleweight championship by locking horns with former champion Antonio Margarito. Pacquiao is finishing up touches on the first leg of his training camp in Baguio City in the Philippines and by all reports it hasn?t been the smoothest of camps.
Missed training days, minor foot injuries, slight illness and various reports that Pacquiao hasn?t been as sharp as in past camps has seemed to be the word thus far. While all of that may just be hype, what was slightly alarming was the recent news that trainer Freddie Roach believes Pacquiao may well indeed be coming to the end of his professional career as a fighter, with his attention becoming more and more focused on his duties as a congressman in the province of Sarangani.
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?We are going to lose Manny Pacquiao to politics, for sure,? Roach recently stated in an interview with the BBC. “After the first couple of days of training Manny came up to me and said ‘I miss my job’. I said ‘you’re at your job’, and he said ‘no, I miss Congress’.”
As a world class athlete in any field of sports, you can?t sustain the same level of excellence without a deep hunger and love for what you are trying to accomplish. It appears that Pacquiao very well may be losing his edge as he 32nd birthday draws near and there is a very real possibility that we won?t see him in the ring again following his 2010 campaign.
As for Mayweather, a recent trip through the Las Vegas fight scene, including Floyd?s personal facility, shows that very few people seem to be in touch with him as closely as before and it does seem to be hard to guess what is going on in his mind. There are those who suggested that he never really wanted to face Pacquiao in the first place but this certainly is the oddest of ways for his wish to be granted as he may now not even have a choice as to whether or not he wants to step into a ring again.
If Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao never fight then life would move on, as would the sport of boxing, but it would surely be a bitter pill to swallow. Never before in this generation had the world?s two best fighters captured the public?s imagination in such a way as these two had and the debates were raging as to the abilities of each man and how a fight between them would play out.
Once looked as being a classic, possibly epic encounter, Floyd Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao looks more and more like the fight that slipped away.
