By MARK WHICKER, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
LAS VEGAS – Is Jimmy Carter doing anything these next few months?
He is the President who got Menachem Begin to shake hands with Anwar Sadat.
He might be the only man who can broker a treaty between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao.
This does not affect world peace. It's far more urgent than that.
After Mayweather turned the renowned Shane Mosley into his 41st consecutive battered, befuddled victim on Saturday, he simply must fight Pacquiao.
Nothing else makes sense or very much commerce.
Mayweather and Pacquiao should fight at least twice. They should be Celtics-Lakers, or Federer-Nadal.
There is no longer any point in identifying the third-best boxer in the world, or becoming emotionally involved in any other matchup, even a good one like Paul Williams vs. Kermit Cintron Saturday at The Home Depot Center.
The stage no longer needs setting. Only one fight remains.
The problem is that it gets more remote as it becomes more obvious. Pacquiao and Mayweather were supposed to have fought already. It fell apart because Mayweather insisted Pacquiao take blood tests. He refused, but Mosley did not. The Nevada Athletic Commission is moving toward requiring such tests.
"I paved the way," said Mayweather, who took a urine test directly after the fight and had a pending blood test, before midnight Saturday. "I just want a level playing field."
And who can argue with Boy Scouts, baptisms and drug testing?
The Pacquiao camp has said it will go along with whatever a commission dictates. It just didn't want to be subservient to Mayweather.
But it's disturbing to see how many points of disagreement the two groups can discover.
Bob Arum, Pacquiao's promoter, has become enamored with ballparks since Pacquiao's mismatch with Joshua Clottey was witnessed by 51,000 in Cowboys Stadium. Now Miguel Cotto will fight Yuri Foreman in Yankee Stadium.
Golden Boy, which promotes Mayweather at the moment, adamantly sticks with Vegas.
The underlying problem, of course, is that each side thinks it should dictate the terms. With all due respect to Pacquiao, that goes completely out the window if Mayweather-Mosley breaks the pay-per-view record set by Mayweather-Oscar De La Hoya.
"He's the best fighter on the planet," De La Hoya said, a bit somberly, because Mosley is a Golden Boy employee.
But not too somberly because now Golden Boy's interests are entwined with Mayweather's.
"He's the king of the world after this one. He can dictate who, when, where and how much when it comes to the next fight," De La Hoya said.
Pacquiao always has maintained that he doesn't need Mayweather to feel fulfilled. Mayweather says ditto.
It's almost as if Pacquiao and Mayweather have so little respect for each other that the mechanics of a big fight today — the nationwide media tour, the heavy pre-fight HBO presence — get in the way.
Mayweather says he only does this to feed his family. Pacquiao has said he's maybe two bouts away from retirement.
Some boxing insiders said all along that Mayweather would defuse Pacquiao's headlong rushes and win convincingly but not lyrically. But that was before Mayweather stood on level ground with Mosley and carried the fight.
"It was time to follow the game plan," he said. "Every time he put up a jab I gave him a full counter. Sometimes he was getting hit before he pulled his jab back. And I was going to break him down with the left hook."
That happened after Mosley stunned Mayweather with a second-round right hand.
"It's not the worst I've been hurt," Mayweather said. "Chop Chop Corley hit me harder. I'm a fighter. This is part of my job. As soon as I got hit I started thinking about my family. I told myself to hold up, relax. I did, and then I came out and won the third round.
"I told myself the fight was only 1-1. After a while Mosley was just in there to survive.
"Ain't cool at all to get hit like that. I'm going to go back and watch the tape and see how I made a mistake. I'm not in this game to take punishment. Other fighters get all excited about power and speed. What makes a fighter is timing and being smart."
Mosley was hit with 202 of Mayweather's punches. Mayweather dodged all but 92 of Mosley's. In power punches, Mayweather shot 46 percent.
Mosley said his neck became stiff, primarily from catching Mayweather's jabs.
"I'm not listening to anybody talk bad about my fighter," trainer Naazim Richardson told him. "Including you."
The one word Mosley didn't utter was "rematch."
He and the rest of boxing are inclined to clear the floor, find the reluctant partners, and demand a spotlight dance.
Source: ocregister.com
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