On May 5th at the MGM Grand Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada WBC Welterweight Champion Floyd ?Money? Mayweather (42-0 with 26 KOs) will fight WBA Super Welterweight Champion Miguel Cotto (37-2 with 30 KOs). Who he won?t be fighting is WBO Welterweight Champion Manny Pacquiao (54-3-2 with 38 KOs). The question that has been surrounding the boxing world going on three years now is: ?Why has this fight not happened and who is to blame?? Although Bob Arum has played a role in precluding the fight from happening due to not wanting to risk his cash cow and his acrimony towards Floyd due to their past, the vast majority of the blame has to fall on the shoulders of Mayweather. Why? Because if Floyd really truly wanted the fight to happen and was willing to risk his undefeated record which he protects the way a mother protects her young, he would have moved mountains to make it happen. He would have done everything in his power to back Arum into a corner and it would be Mayweather, Pacquiao, and the world against Arum and Bob would have folded like a house of cards.
The only two people involved that have ever really wanted this fight to happen are Manny Pacquiao and Freddie Roach. Once Pacquiao became a major threat not only from a physical standpoint, but from a legacy one as well, the wheels on the Mayweather spin machine began to turn. Over the past three years there has been a colossal and futile effort on Mayweather?s part to discredit Pacquiao?s accomplishments and to convince the public that they shouldn?t want or care about this fight any more than Floyd does. It?s clear as day to me, but why it isn?t clear to so many others (namely Floyd fanatics) is beyond my comprehension.
Once the smokescreen, I mean ?the hurdle? vis-?-vis random blood testing no longer was an issue after being agreed to by Pacquiao, Floyd did EXACTLY what this author predicted he would do in order to prolong the clever ducking: He priced himself out of the fight while by design appearing to the general public to be making an earnest effort to make the fight. One thing we all have to give Mayweather credit for is his amazing defense both in and out of the ring. When anyone throws a punch in his direction whether it?s a literal or figurative one, he almost always gets out of the way of the punch.
After Pacquiao?s closely contested fight against lightweight champion Juan Manuel Marquez in November which was his fourth consecutive 12 round fight, it was getting harder and harder for Mayweather to cry ?cheater?. So what did he do? He pulled the final ace out of the deck and is now using the oldest trick in the book to duck his biggest rival: He is asking for the lion?s share of the pot. Suddenly, a fight that was initially agreed upon as a 50/50 split when they first negotiated three years ago has now become in Mayweather?s eyes a ?you get 40 million dollars and I get the rest? one. Forget the fact that neither fighter has lost in the past three years and that Manny is Filipino and still brings much of the international revenue, somehow Mayweather now expects us to believe that he deserves more than 50% of the pie. Floyd has gone from ?take the test? to ?give me the rest?.
Why has he done this? It?s real simple ladies and gentlemen: Floyd Mayweather is scared to lose. He isn?t scared of getting hurt like Ali as he implied to Bob Costas in a recent interview. He is scared of the danger that Pacquiao poses to his undefeated record. Mayweather is a very fragile human being and his whole identity is predicated on his undefeated record. In addition, if Floyd takes a loss, so too does his marketability and hence his bank account. He is no dummy; he knows that his undefeated record and his public persona is a huge reason why he is the immense draw that he has become. Although boxing purists like me love watching him put his amazing skills on display, it?s the casual boxing fans that tune in and turn his fights into lucrative events and not the purists. Floyd knows this and he wants the giant paydays to last as long as he is an active fighter. What he wants even more than that is for the public clamoring for a Pacquiao fight to go away. Floyd is almost certainly having nightmares about Pacquiao and if he never fights him and Manny ends his career without losing again the nightmares will continue into Floyd?s golden years. He is probably praying that Manny loses to Bradley so he can say: ?Why do I need to fight him now? He just lost.”
By pricing himself out of the fight after calling out Manny and trying hard to make the fight for the fans he can now say: ?Look I offered him 40 million dollars and he turned it down, you can?t say I didn?t try.” Floyd, you may not be a dummy but neither am I. You don?t need to pull the wool over the eyes of your fanatics because they are already blind, but that crap isn?t going to work with me. I truly believe that this fight will never happen for the reasons stated earlier. I?m convinced that Floyd would rather fight cancer than fight Pacquiao because at least if he loses that fight he would still die undefeated.
