Manny Pacquiao had the boxing scene all to himself for the last 16 months. He made the most of it, burnishing his image as the Philippines top pugilist politician and solidifying his hold on the No. 1 Pound-for-Pound ranking.
Pacquiao did all that while the other best boxer in the sport, Floyd Mayweather Jr., was making headlines for all the wrong reasons.
Now Mayweather is returning to the ring, announcing via Twitter on Tuesday that he plans to end his hiatus by meeting WBC welterweight champ Victor Ortiz on Sept. 17.
With that news Mayweather may be closer to fighting Pacquiao than he has been in the past two years. Pacquiao will meet Juan Manuel Marquez for a third time in November ? two months after Mayweather’s fight. That sets up nicely for a Cinco de Mayo showdown between Mayweather and Pacquiao in May 2012. Plus, Ortiz, a hard-punching, aggressive southpaw, is the perfect primer for Mayweather-Pacquiao.
By selecting Ortiz as a comeback/tuneup match, Mayweather also highlighted one of the shortcomings during Pacquiao’s ring run of the last year and a half. Pacquiao has not selected a single young, up-and-coming champion as an opponent. His last three fights have been against Joshua Clottey, Antonio Margarito and Shane Mosley. None of them were remotely competitive, and in the case of Margarito and Mosley, the fights only served to prove just how faded they were. Mosley had lost a lopsided decision to Mayweather in May 2010, which proved to be the perfect audition for the Pacquiao fight.
Mayweather, 34, didn’t select a soft touch in tabbing Ortiz for his first fight in 16 months. Ortiz, 24, moved up from junior welterweight to challenge Andre Berto for the WBC welterweight title on April 16. Ortiz fought a pitched battle against Berto, the two of them trading knockdowns in the sixth round, before pulling out a decision to win his first world title. Ortiz may be too green to beat Mayweather, but he’s going to be game.
“He is the current champion and an extremely talented fighter who showed amazing skills, and heart, in his last performance against Andre Berto,” Mayweather said. “At this stage of my career, these are the challenges I look for – a young, strong, rising star looking to make his mark in boxing by beating me.”
Pacquiao has been saying the same thing, but he hasn’t done anything about it. He has been viewed as the guy being ducked by Mayweather since the negotiations for a possible match has twice fallen apart. In the last 16 months Pacquiao has had the opportunity to fight any of the young, up-and-coming fighters hovering around 140 pounds ? Ortiz, Timothy Bradley, Devon Alexander ? or even Berto, who was holding the welterweight title during that span. Instead he chose Clottey, Margarito and Mosley.
And now comes Mayweather, who hasn’t done a single thing in the ring for 16 months and has only fought twice since 2009, and steals some of Pacquiao’s shine by signing on to fight one of these young, hungry champions.
If Mayweather beats Ortiz, and beats him in a convincing manner, it will add more heat to a fight against Pacquiao. Everything will align for a mega fight in 2012. With Pacquiao saying that he will agree with Mayweather’s demand for pre-fight drug testing, there appears to be few obstacles for making the fight.
Mayweather will also be looking to re-establish himself as boxing’s Pay Per View king. It will be a test of his promotional chops because hardly anyone outside of boxing knows anything about Ortiz. Mayweather, however, has enough of a profile, and the necessary bravado, to carry the promotion. Unfortunately most of the headlines that Mayweather has made during his 16-month absence from the ring have been the wrong kind.
Since the Mosley fight on May 1, Mayweather has been preoccupied with a string of run-ins with the law and has two criminal cases pending in Las Vegas. There is the misdemeanor case for an alleged attack on a security guard for ticketing his cars on the street in his gated community outside of Las Vegas. And there is the case carrying four misdemeanors and four felonies charges arising from an alleged domestic violence incident involving the mother of two of his children in September 2010. He is due in court on those charges on Oct. 20.
Mayweather will have squeezed in another multi-million payday against Ortiz before that court date. And he will have set himself up for a showdown with Pacquiao, who has filled himself up on cream puffs in Mayweather’s absence from the boxing scene.
PUNCHLINES: For several years a major boxing show in New York was part of the week of Puerto Rican Day parade festivities, typically headlined by Miguel Cotto, who was the best champion from Puerto Rico. After tough losses to Antonio Margarito and Manny Pacquiao, Cotto has cooled considerably, but boxing remains a part of the festivities in New York with back-to-back shows featuring top Puerto Rican prospects and contenders at Roseland Ballroom on Friday and Saturday night.
Kenny Galarza (14-1, 14 KOs) takes on Irving Garcia (17-6-3, 8 KOs) in a 10-round welterweight match at Roseland Ballroom as part of ESPN2’s “Friday Night Fights” Friday night. In the co-feature, top prospect Thomas Dulorme (11-0, 10 KOs) meets former world champ DeMarcus “Chop-Chop” Corley (37-17-1, 22 KOs). Others on the card include Puerto Rican Olympian Jose Pedraza (2-0, 2 KOs), who has created a stir in boxing, and Bronx junior welterweight prospect Steven Martinez (9-0, 7 KOs).
Featherweight contender Luis Del Valle (12-0, 10 KOs) of Bayamon, P.R., will take on Dat Nguyen (17-1, 6 KOs) in a 10-round match in the main event of a card at Roseland Ballroom on Showtime’s “ShoBox” on Saturday night. In the co-feature Jonathan Gonzalez (13-0) of Rio Piedras, P.R., will take on Richard Gutierrez (26-6-1, 16 KOs) in a junior middleweight match. ? Zab Judah, the IBF junior welterweight champion from Brooklyn, will meet Amir Khan, the WBA 140-pound champion, in a 12-round unification bout in Las Vegas on July 23. Judah appears to be reborn since adding former lightweight and welterweight champion Pernell Whitaker to his corner as his chief trainer. Kathy Duva of Main Events, Judah’s promoter, said the goal is not only to establish Judah as the premier boxer at 140 pounds, but to get him on the Pound-for-Pound list. That’s ambition, but not farfetched if he can get past Khan, who went to Judah after he couldn’t get a match with Timothy Bradley, the other top-flight 140-pounder…Another Brooklyn product, Luis Collazo, former welterweight champion, has signed a promotional contract with Golden Boy Promotions. Collazo, a 30-year-old crafty southpaw, had been on the shelf for the last two years trying to extricate himself from his agreement with promoter Don King before stopping Franklin Gonzalez on a third-round TKO back in April. The new agreement should be a mutually beneficial arrangement for Collazo and Golden Boy. GBP has a lot of fighters hovering around the welterweight limit and they have that agreement to start doing shows at the Barclays Center ? the new Nets arena ? in Brooklyn next year?They called Azumah Nelson “The Professor” when he fought because he often gave boxing lessons in the ring. Now the former featherweight champion and Boxing Hall of Famer is trying to provide educational opportunities to the children in his home country of Ghana through his foundation. Nelson will host a charity event at Gleason’s Gym in Brooklyn on June 13. The proceeds will go to help build the Azumah Nelson Academy, a facility on 50 acres in Akuse, Ghana that will combine education and sports for children?Genaro Hernandez, a former lightweight champion, lost a three-year battle with cancer, dying at his home in Mission Viejo, Calif., surrounded by his family, on Tuesday. Hernandez, whose notable losses were to Oscar De La Hoya and Floyd Mayweather, Jr. and whose greatest victory came against Azumah Nelson, was a gentlemen of the sport, always cordial and quick with a smile. Condolences to Hernandez’s family, including his brother Rudy, who was his trainer and manager.
