It’s hardly surprising that Saturday’s fight between Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather is being hyped as the biggest in Boxing history. But, to be fair, the reported $400-million purse they’ll be splitting between them justifies the hype.
Several readers have contacted me to inquire about my interest in and pick for this fight. This excerpt from “Márquez Knocks Out Pacquiao, ‘the Best Fighter Ever,’” December 12, 2012, should explain a lot in this regard.
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I was not at all surprised when Pacquiao looked more like the journeyman fighter everyone thought Márquez was fated to be. In their three previous fights, Pacquiao won two split decisions and the other ended in a draw. That Márquez knocked him out in this one vindicates my suspicion that the outcome of their previous fights had more to do with judges buying into Arum’s promotional hype than Pacquiao’s performance in the ring.
This humiliating loss was the second-consecutive one for Pacquiao. More importantly, though, it demonstrated why Pacquiao has ducked every opportunity to fight the undefeated (43-0) Mayweather – who, incidentally, dominated Márquez in their one fight in 2009.
Apropos of which, you can be forgiven for having no clue that there was (and perhaps still is) as great a demand in the Boxing world for a Pacquiao vs. Mayweather fight as there has been for any fight in history. But there can be no doubt now that Mayweather would put an even bigger ass whoopin’ on Pacquiao than Márquez did on Saturday night.
If I were Mayweather, though, I would not even dignify Pacquiao by stepping into the ring with him at this point. In fact, Pacquiao might want to have a heart-to-heart chat with Roberto Duran for insight on the ignominious fate that awaits him if he does not retire, immediately.
Meanwhile, does anybody know who the world heavyweight champion is these days? Does anybody care…?
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Ironically, Wladimir Klitschko defended his heavyweight title for the eighteenth time on Saturday night at Madison Square against challenger Bryant Jennings.
But nothing indicates what little interest this fight generated quite like Sunday papers providing far more coverage of the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, to say nothing of the Nepalese earthquake, than of this fight. Did you even know about it…? I digress….
The point is that I would have been as excited as any Boxing fan if this Pacquiao-Mayweather fight were happening in 2009. But it’s years late … even if not dollars short.
Apropos of which, my disregard for Pacquiao’s boxing these days is surpassed only by my disrespect for Mayweather’s lifestyle. For chances are that the only thing most people know about Mayweather stems not from how he displays his Boxing skills in the ring, but from how he flaunts his personal wealth on social media.
Indeed, most of you — who probably know how many million-dollar mansions, exotic cars, and expensive watches Mayweather owns — probably have no clue how many fights he has won. For the record, he’s 47-0.
But it’s one thing for him to celebrate his first big payday by frolicking in millions of dollars on his bed. It’s quite another for him to not only continue doing so after every fight, but begin posting images of every indulgence of his look-at-me-I’m-so-rich life on social media for all the world to see. Never mind that he studiously avoids sharing images of the battered faces of women he gets off on abusing, having been convicted five times for battering four different women.
This, of course, is far more damning of the voyeuristic/prurient interests of the millions who follow him than of Mayweather’s ostentatious/abusive lifestyle. To say nothing of the corporate sponsors and advisers who would countenance anything he does, as long as they can continue reaping profits as members of his The Money Team (TMT).
Mind you, I fully appreciate that, but for Mayweather’s postings on social media (complete with vine videos of him “making it rain” dollar bills at one strip club after another), there would probably be less interest in and prize money for his fights than Klitschko’s. And, like all of the Toms, Dicks, and Harrys thriving on reality TV theses days, Floyd knows this all too well.
Indeed, even influential commentators are denouncing Mayweather as an abuser of women, while doggedly lobbying for a ringside seat to watch this fight. By instructive contrast, I won’t even support this serial abuser by forking over the $100 to watch on pay per view, let alone the $10,000 or more to watch ringside. I’ll read about it the morning papers — just as I do every other overnight spectacle/tragedy.
In any event, and with all due respect to the promoters, I see this as a fight between “good” Pacquiao as the self-professed Christian crusader, and “evil” Mayweather as the self-styled mammon forager. And, in such a fight, what mortal dare root for mammon?
Accordingly, here’s to Pacquiao so humiliating him in the ring that Mayweather dare not show his smug face, to say nothing of his obscene and profligate wealth, on social media ever again. And may God help him, because – as I delineated in my excerpt above – Pacquiao does not stand a snowball’s chance in Hell of beating Mayweather on his own.
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Márquez Knocks out…
* This commentary was originally published on Monday, April 27, at 3:33 p.m.