Fans of Manny Pacquiao and serious boxing fans across the world will be disappointed – though not surprised – by the news coming out of Las Vegas this week.
Despite the fact that neither fighter is getting any younger, despite the fact that there is now a window of opportunity to stage the biggest fight in boxing history, and it?s a window that could shut as soon as either fighters suffers a defeat, Floyd Mayweather has found yet another excuse for avoiding a fight with his mandatory challenger Manny Pacquiao.
On an interview with American radio presenter Kelly Mac, when asked if he would fight Pacquiao, Mayweather simply repeated the phrase ?Pacquiao is 1-2 in his last three fights.?
Although Mayweather v Pacquiao seems no closer to happening, in boxing anything can happen. Should the fight be announced, Mayweather is a 1/4 favourite with bookmakers, while ?Pacman? is currently coming in at 3/1.
Mayweather has been linked with a May return to the ring against a number of opponents including Amir Khan and current WBC light welterweight champion Danny Garcia. Mayweather is a 1/8 favorite to defeat Khan should the fight take place, with the Brit at 13/2. Mayweather is also a heavy 1/10 favourite to defeat Garcia, who is 6/1 to win.
Six-weight world champion Pacquiao (55-5-2, 38 KOs) who turns 35 this month recently returned to action following a year-long hiatus in the wake of his shock sixth-round knockout at the hands of long-time nemesis Juan Manuel Marquez last December. Previously, Pacquiao had been the victim of a highly controversial points defeat to Tim Bradley that cost him his WBO welterweight title.
There had been much speculation as to how Pacquiao would look in his return against Brandon Rios, a former WBA lightweight champion renowned for his cement chin and heavy hitting, but Pacquiao looked as good as ever, putting on a superb display of speed, slick boxing and power to win a land-slide decision. The win earned him the no.1 spot in the WBC?s welterweight rankings, making him Mayweather?s mandatory challenger.
Five-weight world champion Mayweather (45-0, 26 KOs) turns 37 in January. He is currently two fights in to a six-fight, $250 million dollar, 30-month deal with his promoters Showtime TV. His first fight of this current contract against Robert Guerrero in May lost money at the box-office, although his second bout against Saul ?Canelo? Alvarez in September was a huge commercial success, although neither fight was likely to attract any new fans to the sport of boxing, such was the lack of exciting action in either fight.
Since abandoning the junior lightweight division in 2002 and spending brief sojourns at lightweight and junior welterweight, Mayweather has camped in the welterweight division (with the occasional sortie up to 154), where he has had his pick of blown up lightweights and fading superstars.
The genuine threats to his supremacy that have come his way during his time as a welterweight that were posed by a peak Miguel Cotto, Antonio Margarito, Paul Williams, and most blatantly of all ? Manny Pacquiao, were cleverly avoided and replaced with the likes Carlos Baldomir, Ricky Hatton, Juan Manuel Marquez and Victor Ortiz.
When Mayweather did eventually tackle Cotto in 2012, it was a version of the Puerto Rican that was heavier and slower, plus had suffered two savage beatings at the hands of Margarito and Pacquiao. Nevertheless, Cotto still gave Mayweather all he could handle, bloodying his nose, catching him repeatedly and losing by a much closer margin than the official scorecards suggested. One can only speculate what might have happened had the two met five years earlier.
Ever since Manny Pacquiao first blazed a trail to the welterweight division in 2008 with his eight-round destruction of Oscar De La Hoya ? the same De La Hoya that many believe beat Mayweather the year before ? Mayweather has clearly wanted no part of him, and has hidden behind any amount of excuses to avoid him, from blood tests to politics to purse split. Most famously of all, in 2012 he admitted that fighting Pacquiao could endanger his health, and that he didn?t want to leave the sport ?like Ali?, i.e with brain damage. As he said at the time ?I?m a coward, but I?m a rich coward.?
Further on in his interview with Kelly Mac, on the subject of donating some of his vast wealth to African charities, Mayweather retorted with the line ?what has Africa ever done for me??
Even by Mayweather?s often crass standards, that statement by a man who was infamously filmed burning $100 dollar bills in a nightclub and seems to spend his money as fast as he earns it takes some beating. But it is because of such comments and behavior ? rather than ring performances – that Mayweather has managed to become such a huge PPV attraction in boxing. Whether this persona is genuine, or one carefully constructed between himself and his manager Al Haymon to manipulate the public is open to speculation.
Mayweather is the ultimate pantomime villain, the equivalent of the ?heel` in a WWE match, the fighter most neutral fans want to see lose, and because of this as much as anything else, should he swallow his pride and fight Manny Pacquiao, it will be the biggest prizefight in boxing history.
