Why Mayweather is scared of Pacquiao
Happy birthday to Arlene, who for 29 years has weathered the many challenges and savored the occasional joys by my side -- lovingly, caringly, loyally, and sometimes threateningly. My father confessor, my all-night eardrum, my defender, my promoter, my wardrobe provider, my number one fan, the mother of my children, my wife and best friend and my everything else. Here is the secret you cannot keep -- 50 and many many more. Cheers, Ner.
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Just got back from a whirlwind trip to Macau for the Manny Pacquiao fight against American Chris Algieri. I was in the company of this paper's sports editor, Manny Villaruel, and his counterpart from the Cebu Daily News, Ric Gabuya. We were just three among more than 200 foreign journalists who were there for the fight and gave it the kind of extensive coverage that did not allow the slightest bit of detail slip by unnoticed.
Of the nearly 15,000 people who packed the Cotai Arena at the Venetian in Macau, perhaps 80 percent were Filipino, many of whom just flew in for the fight. I never realized Manny Pacquiao had that many fans, or that boxing can still lure that many in these times when every conceivable sport or game is readily available for anyone who has the time and the interest to pursue anything.
As it had been for quite some time now, the greater interest of the fans lay not in the Algieri fight but in what was in store for Manny after that fight. To everyone in and out of boxing, it was perfectly understood that the Algieri fight was just a teaser for the one fight that matters at this point in the long history of professional boxing.
There is no other fight that will be as significant for the books, as substantial for the promoters, as exciting for the fans, and as a matter of achievement for either of the would-be protagonists than a Manny Pacquiao-Floyd Mayweather Jr. fight. After the Algieri fight, almost nobody could wait for any hint or indication of what is to be next.
Bob Arum said the fight should happen by June. But until the fight actually happens in some ring wherever in the world, the fight of the century will probably have to wait until the parties concerned can agree to squeeze what they can out of the greatest marketable bout anyone has seen in boxing. And yet, I suspect it is not all about money, really.
Both fighters already have all the money they can decently spend on anyone and anything. Pacquiao would not have chartered two planes and bring in more than 300 people from Gensan to his fight, all expenses paid, if he did not have the money to burn. Mayweather definitely has even more although he spends it in quite a different way than Pacquiao.
Pacquiao wants to fight Mayweather because Mayweather represents the only remaining boxer of prominence, skill, and personal quality that can complete his own story. Whether Pacquiao beats Mayweather or loses to him is no longer of any moment to him. It is no longer about the outcome. It is not so much about the money. It is about having faced the best. It is about putting closure to a saga.
It is the same for Mayweather, whether he admits it or not. Differences in personality notwithstanding, Mayweather is just a boxer just as Pacquiao wish. Stripped of all the spectacle gained over time, they are just essentially modern-day gladiators who one day decided to make a living out of boxing and who distinguished themselves from the rest who made the same decision by simply being extraordinary.
There is one little thing, though, about Mayweather. He has never lost a professional fight. He would have loved to keep that record unblemished by the time he decides to hang up his gloves. He has illusions of whiling away his retirement on a bed of his riches, secure in the thought that he has fought the best and has beaten them all.
Unfortunately for him, that will forever remain an illusion for as long as Manny is there. Had Manny been just any other boxer that Mayweather has not fought, it would have been no skin of his back. But Mayweather cannot legitimately close his own book and claim he has fought the best unless he fights Manny. It is as simple as that.
In fact, to put it bluntly, and with due respect to his great record, Mayweather will be a nobody for as long as the fight with Pacquiao will not happen. He may have fought some of the best and greatest names in boxing. But that lineup will not be complete without Pacquiao. Pacquiao is the be-all of the Mayweather legacy to boxing.
And Mayweather knows that and that is what scares him. No, I do not mean Mayweather is scared to face Pacquiao as a boxer. Mayweather is scared of Pacquiao because of what Pacquiao can do to his legacy, the legacy of being unbeaten and on top of the boxing world as the greatest of his time. Pacquiao is the one boxer who can deny him that legacy. Pacquiao is the one boxer who can possibly deal him his first defeat. And that scares the shit out of Mayweather.
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