You can never trust a skinny cook or a pretty palooka, and Floyd Mayweather Jr. is a real pretty palooka, indeed.
That’s why I blame Mayweather for the collapse of the superfight between him and Manny Pacquiao, slated for March but scuttled this month for reasons that are still incomprehensible. The Fight, as it will henceforth be called, was set to be positively Balboan in its grandeur, matching as it would have one of the 10 best fighters in history (Mayweather) with a man who has a chance to join that list (Pacquiao). Rarely do the two best fighters in a given year—let alone a given decade—happen to fight around the same weight class. But with the unrelenting lameness of top heavyweight contenders gradually turning that division into a kind of homoerotic slow-dance, the boxing world has been increasingly interested in the more dynamic cluster of weight classes between featherweight (126 pounds) and middleweight (160 pounds). This is the sweet spot where our two heroes have earned their livings, where fighters are big enough to land haymakers but also still fast enough to dodge them.
Floyd “Money” Mayweather is very much about the dodge, and is as good an embodiment of the distinction between a boxer and a mere puncher as there is. Undefeated in 40 professional fights, a six-time champion in five different weight classes, he is—despite his 25 knockouts—a predominantly defensive fighter. He lives and dies by the “shoulder roll” stance taught to him by Floyd Sr., his old man and on-again-off-again trainer. Lead arm high, chin tucked into his deltoid, trailing arm loose around his midsection, spinal column on a swivel: Face and guts thus protected, he pivots and moves with his opponents’ punches like Jay-Z brushing the dirt off his shoulder, his face always registering a kind of faintly amused surprise when their worst blows whiff a few inches in front of him. On offense, he is a genius tactician who doesn’t so much land counterpunches as meticulously place them. He plays to the points on the judges’ cards, and lets pretenders to his throne hurt themselves as much as he hurts them.
But since Mayweather’s semi-retirement a couple of years ago, Pacquiao has topped most observers’ lists as his successor atop the sport. Pacquiao is a demi-god in his native Philippines—not just a boxer but also a credible national politician, an action-movie hero, and a pop star. Inside the ring, he’s a guerrilla, a banger, a stalker who chases his mark around with both hands flying. On his way to a record-setting seventh title in seven different weight classes, he bludgeoned Miguel Cotto, one of the toughest-chinned sons-of-a-bitch ever to don a pair of nylon shorts, so badly in the 12th round that the referee called the fight with just seconds left. He showed up for his match against Oscar De La Hoya shorter, smaller, and with less reach than his opponent—and beat him so badly that De La Hoya respectfully declined to come out of his corner in the ninth round and retired from boxing shortly thereafter.
And everything seemed set for the great sword and the great shield of the boxing world to meet in Las Vegas on March 13, until the two fighters’ camps hit a snag on drug-testing policy. Mayweather wanted Pacquiao to agree to Olympics-style random blood testing up to and including the day of the fight, figuring that Pacquiao had to be doping to move so quickly and effortlessly up weight classes. (The irony was that this fleet movement is precisely what Mayweather had done years earlier.) Pacquiao, all machismo and superstition, read the demand as an insult to his honor, worried the tests dangling over his head would weaken him physically and psychically, and wanted no tests inside of 30 days before the fight. There was much public smack-talking and counteroffers were bandied, but talks finally collapsed a couple of weeks ago.
In the end, it couldn’t have been all about blood tests. Mayweather knows damned well his opponent isn’t doping—Pacquiao had already agreed to a test immediately following the fight to show he had nothing to hide, and is so pissed at the implication behind Mayweather’s demands that he is suing for defamation.
So what was it about? Money? Maybe. Boxing is so dirty that you’d be wise to go ahead and wash after reading this column. Fights always happen or don’t because the cigar-smoking, derby-wearing mustachioed men who pull the strings calculate that there is a nickel more to be made one way or the other. So it would make sense to wonder, as some have, whether calling the fight was a strategic tease, meant to ramp up excitement—and profits—for a second go in 2011.
But how much more money could be out there? Both parties already stood to be made filthy, stinking rich by the fight—each side left a guaranteed $25 million on the table, and probably that same amount in Pay-Per-View fees.
That leaves only one explanation for Mayweather’s stupid terms: pure, raw, incontinent fear. Mayweather is afraid of Manny Pacquiao—hell, who can blame him?—and the great genius of defensive boxing has maybe rightly decided that the best defense against Manny Pacquiao is never to step into the ring.
Source: avclub.com
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