Flamboyant Floyd Mayweather Jr?s gargantuan ego was repeatedly pricked when world sports attention turned to Filipino eight-division champion Manny Pacquiao all over again during the weekend.
Pacquiao and Mayweather are the two top boxers in their generation who happen to be fighting in the same weight class. Despite their failure to agree to a fight or because of it, both boxers are so endlessly tied to each other that one?s name invariably pops when the other is fighting another opponent. When they are not, all of boxing world speculate tirelessly when they will ever do so.
So when Pacquiao made the first of a series of appearances in the US to promote his May 7 fight against Shane Mosley, Floyd tried to steal the show by reminding everybody that the Filipino boxing superstar had three losses in his career and two controversial decision wins against a common opponent. Floyd?s not too subtle take is his own perfect record ? just to remind all and sundry that he has not ceded his claim as the best pound for pound fighter, ever, even though he is not fighting anytime soon.
Floyd has made it a habit over the last two years to deride Manny?s boxing record and impute drug use to back his own argument as the best boxer today. But all these times, he never was close to signing a fight contract with Manny. Not even for a possible record-breaking runaway US$50 million purse for each of the two fighters.
Both Floyd and Manny have reached the stage of their careers when the business side of boxing has equaled if not taken over the competitive nature of the sports, that is fighting the best there is.
Trouble is the two best boxers in the planet today are no closer to fighting each other than they were five years ago when they were knocking out opponents at different weight divisions.
Manny has run out of pick-them-up opponents in his division but his desire to fight until next year at least allowed him the luxury of choosing his opponents. In fact, four of his last five opponents have been linked, one or the other to Floyd. But, except for Joshua Clottey, the four were no easy pick up fights. They were risky fights. Only that Manny prevailed against conventional wisdom in boxing.
Manny did better than Floyd in disposing Ricky Hatton and Oscar de la Hoya while taking Antonio Margarito and Miguel Angel Cotto, the two boxers avoided by Floyd when he was still the welterweight champion some four years back.
They have already fought three common opponents ? Juan Manuel Marquez, de la Hoya and Hatton. Mosley will become the fourth guy.
So what will it take for Floyd to finally agree to fight Manny aside from his whimsical demand for drug testing?
Nothing.
Not even for all the marbles and the money.
But stopping Mosley cold when Floyd wasn?t able do it could do the trick for Manny. Nevertheless, Manny has to literally beg Floyd to retire from boxing for good if the American boxer is not fighting him. Do the reverse, instead of Manny running after him.
You see, the only thing that matters for Floyd is his zero loss. Unless Manny guarantees him he will keep that, he won?t come out of his shell. Maybe. But then it will be farcical.
If the press will stop feeding his ego and reduce him to irrelevance, maybe he will seek out Manny himself. Floyd needs the attention. The cruelest thing to do to him is deny him space in the limelight.
Or maybe, Floyd finally runs of dollar bills to throw when he parties all night long because of his legal troubles.
Now I am already confused.
Do we really want to see lose Floyd to Manny or we long to see Manny crush Floyd?
It doesn?t matter, it?s all the same.
