Pacquiao-Mayweather: Two years too late?

Like the sightings of the Loch Ness monster, the prospect of a Manny Pacquiao-Floyd Mayweather fight pops up in the media every few weeks or so. Mayweather, who has had unimpressive showings over the last two years, has not-so-subtlely been riding on Pacquiao’s media mileage by acting as a biased observer. If he were seriously unassailable in his position as the world’s best pound-for-pound fighter, he wouldn’t need to bask in Manny’s reflected mileage each time the Filipino champion was in the news.

Is this fight past its prime as a bonafide blockbuster, like more people are agreeing its two potential protagonists are? For one, people are tired of hoping for it to push through. Actually, they’re tired of being let down, of Mayweather’s constant hemming and hawing and manufacturing an endless stream of excuses. But you can’t deny he has done a magnificent job of staying in our consciousness by baiting stories, even going so far as to post an edited fantasy photo of him getting a jab through Pacquiao’s defenses.

But in frequent conversations with other sports journalists, the growing opinion is that this fight is two years too late. The rabid enthusiasm has been tempered by disappointment, age and unspectacular performances on both sides of the fence. It has become more of a tennis match, and you know that neither side will come into contact with the other, not as long as Mayweather’s deep rift with Top Rank Promotions exists.

When would have been the ideal time for the two to have met? If we could handpick the point in history when this great clash would have occurred, that would have been during the international summer of 2011. At that point, Mayweather’s last fight would have been a full year after Pretty Boy Floyd’s relatively easy unanimous decision win over an over-the-hill Shane Mosley, and right about the time Pacquiao took his turn at Sugar Shane. Recall too that, in that span, Top Rank’s Bob Arum went from dismissing Mosley to calling him the ideal opponent for Pacman. After that, everything got curiouser and curiouser, to quote Alice in Wonderland.

Where was Pacquiao at this point in time? The 2011 Pacquiao would have been rested after a difficult but arresting unanimous decision win in a catchweight fight with Antonio Margarito for the vacant WBC light middleweight belt. Margarito, who had gone down in weight, hurt Pacquiao in the sixth round when the latter’s hand had gotten caught in the ropes, leaving him open for a shot to the midsection. Pacquiao had been on roll after decimating the lower weight classes, and he seemed unstoppable.

Before Margarito, he knocked out David Diaz in the ninth round for the WBC lightweight belt. Then he forced Oscar dela Hoya to retire before flooring Ricky Hatton in the second round. Then he had a tough time before stopping Miguel Cotto in the 12th round of their powerful fight. He also took a lot of punishment before prevailing over a grateful Joshua Clottey. All of these brilliant victories added to a record haul of belts, and cemented his legend, before he chose to slum it against Mosley.

As for Mayweather, same old, same old. He was still on cruise control in 2011, fighting just enough to stay in the public’s mind and brag about his unblemished record, his personal problems notwithstanding. He would have been a relatively fresh 34 years old, and would have just notched the 40th win of his perfect slate. Prior to 2013, the last time Mayweather fought even twice in one year was in 2007. In 2013, he decisioned Robert Guerrero and Saul Alvarez, the latter in a surprising majority decision, when judge C.J. Ross scored the bout a draw.

At the end of 2011, I remember sitting with Filipino athletes at the 26th Southeast Asian Games in Palembang, Indonesia, watching Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez fight again. Our athletes had commandeered every available screen, even the gargantuan one in the cafeteria. But by the eighth round, some of them actually stood up and stopped watching, believing that Pacquiao had already lost. Though he was proclaimed victor by majority decision, that memory stood out in my mind. If our own national athletes presumed to have a sense of the true outcome of the fight, then something must have been wrong.

After that, Pacquiao suffered back-to-back losses, first via decision to Timothy Bradley, then via knockout to Marquez. But prior to 2011, he had not lost since his first fight with Erik Morales in March of 2005, which he avenged ten months later. The question is if he still has enough time left in his career to build his way back up to his mythic status.

A Pacquiao-Mayweather bout, should it ever happen, would definitely cause a spike in pay-per-view sales, merchandising and sponsorships, assuming they get over the gauntlet of who gets more of which revenue stream. It will definitely be a fight to watch, whether or not Mayweather resorts to dirty tricks, like he did against Marquez and Victor Ortiz. It will undoubtedly be controversial, regardless of who wins.

Or it could just become another ‘what if’ that may only be witnessed in some video game someday.

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BOHOL LIVE AID 2014: A fund-raising concert for the benefit of the earthquake victims of Bohol, will be held at the Xavier Grade School Gym  on Saturday, Jan. 11, 2014 at 7:30 p.m. Featured performers are Wally Gonzalez Bandwagon, Flippin Soul Stompers and Strange Behavior. Proceeds shall go to the Rebuild Bohol Foundation which is reconstructing homes for the displaced people of the province.