The fight is on.
But is it still ours?
So, the much-anticipated superfight between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao will finally be held on May 2 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. No less than Mayweather himself was reported to have made the announcement. Now I don't know about you, but when I saw the news scrawled at the bottom of the tv screen last Saturday morning, I frankly didn't feel the kind of excitement I thought I would feel.
I know of course that when the fight finally happens, I will be like the millions of others who will be caught up in it. But last Saturday, when the announcement finally came, I was simply too drained from the waiting that I just didn't care anymore. Maybe, I have reached that point when you get played around that everything just sort of becomes perfunctory. You know, like if it happens, it will, and if not, so what.
I concede it will still be a terrific fight. But only because of the old questions we ourselves belabored for an answer. Other than that, I think the fight fans from all over have decided to move on. There had been individual lives to be lived, personal endeavors to pursue that just could not be put on hold forever on the off-chance the fight might happen at the time the world thought it might.
The universe that had lain at the foot of these two mighty titans of boxing has grown tired of the waiting and has chosen to rise and get on with its life. If the fight eventually happens, it will be the fight that will play catch-up with the fans. The fans have decided not to wait forever. There is simply a limit to how much excitement people are willing to put their lives on hold for.
When that limit is breached, people may still sit up and listen, but they will not lose sleep discussing it. And I think that is what happened to me. And I think that is what happened to a lot of other people. When I got to the office, nobody was talking about it. It was as if no announcement of the fight finally happening was ever made.
As I have said, when the fight happens, the fans will still be there. The excitement will still be electric. And I will still be the same critic of Pacquiao who, on fight night, will be the biggest patriot screaming on his behalf. I will be the father character in Bruce Springsteen's long-winded intro to The River. But for the moment, somehow something in me is just dead to that fight.
Pacquiao-Mayweather will be the richest fight ever, with an expected $200 million purse seen to be split $120 million - $80 million, the bigger share naturally going to Mayweather. This plus some other concessions to the American were what reportedly made the fight finally happen. In short, it was all about the money that made it happen, never mind if it meant everything else for the rest of the world.
Added to the purse will be the pay-per-view shares the boxers will be getting, not to mention other juicy add-ons and earnings that are what spectacles like this are expected to generate. The big business of marquee fights is often blinding. Almost no consideration is given to the fans for waiting. It will be as if they never waited at all.
And I will not be surprised if, when this fight comes to pass, there will be a follow-up fight, a rematch, a return bout. This is often how these things go and add up. Everything is designed so that the fight can be squeezed for whatever it is worth, and for as long as it takes. The neat part of it is that a second fight, or even a third, will not take as long as this one did.
It is a good two months plus before May 2. There will be plenty of time to hype up the fight. As the boxers go into intense training, there will be daily updates in the news. There will be interviews with either camp, with a lot of quotes and misquotes meant to whip up passions into atmospheres. The fight must prove the effort, if not its worth.
I have a nagging feeling the fight had been set back too long for it to live up to its significance. Pacquiao is 36, Mayweather is 38, five years beyond when the showdown ought to have happened, and the outcome to have mattered. There was a time when we would have wanted Pacquiao to blast the living daylights out of the loudmouth Mayweather. Now, all we want from the fight is just a winner.
I don't know about you, but somewhere in there I think is a vacuum where passion should have been, and where relevance was irreplaceable. Had the fight happened when it should have, it would have been pride of country and nothing else. But so much has happened in the intervening years. Pacquiao himself has lost some of the moral luster that obscured everything else. Now he is just our boxer, going up against theirs. We are no longer in the ring but outside it, just watching.
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