Thanks to Floyd Mayweather Jr.'s video, the one he issued from one of his more opulent caves, he has achieved the impossible.
He has cured us of Mayweather-Pacquiao fever.
Suddenly we can live without The Last Great Fight, hanging tantalizingly before us for a year now.
Certainly Manny Pacquiao can, after he has capitulated to all of Mayweather's drug-testing demands, only to be insulted on racial and sexual grounds Thursday.
"As soon as we come off vacation, we're going to cook that little yellow chump," Mayweather declared. "So they ain't gotta worry about me fighting the midget. Once I stomp the midget, I'll make that little (deleted) make me a sushi roll and cook me some rice."Beyond that, he referred to his prospective opponent as "Poochiao," termed him a "whore," and said, "I'm gonna fight the Pacman when he gets off his power pellets," an apparent term for performance-enhancers, although Pacquiao never has tested positive.
This coincided with the Pacquiao-Antonio Margarito media tour, promoting their Nov. 13 meeting at Cowboys Stadium.
The video also injected its poison into cyberspace one day before Bob Arum, Pacquiao's promoter and Mayweather's original promoter, learned the body of his 49-year-old son John had been found on a mountainside in Washington. John, an environmental lawyer, was pursuing his goal of climbing the 100 tallest mountains in the state.
Incredibly, Mayweather seemed mystified that anyone would take offense and issued another video apologizing to Arum and Pacquiao.
"I do want to apologize for what happened the other night," Mayweather said. "I want to apologize to everybody because everybody thought that was a racist comment that I said. I don't have a racist bone in my body. I have nothing but love for everybody. I just was having fun. I didn't really mean it."
Then he added the famous Some Of My Best Friends Are White People defense.
You didn't mean it, Floyd? Well, we mean this:
Retire.
John Rocker apologized, too, for insulting gays, Muslims and all immigrants in 2000. The Atlanta Braves pitcher was taken to task during an angry team meeting the next spring, and baseball suspended him for the first 14 games of the 2000 season.
It had no effect on Rocker, who was out of organized baseball in 2003. But there is no controlling authority in boxing to discipline or suspend Mayweather, as in other sports.
A prominent promoter recently said there would be no Mayweather-Pacquiao fight, even though it would easily be the most lucrative in the history of the sport. Freddie Roach, Pacquiao's promoter, has had his doubts, too.
That made no sense whatsoever, except by boxing's suicidal standards.
But now it does.
Pacquiao has said repeatedly he does not need Mayweather, and he is right. He has built greatness without him. Who would have ever predicted that the former 106-pounder would not only defeat but finish Oscar De La Hoya?
He also has taken boxing into a new orbit internationally and is a far more intense national obsession in the Philippines than any athlete is in the United States.
However, Pacquiao always has said he would be willing to take on The Pretty Boy and proved it by agreeing to the drug tests.
So maybe all the other boxing insiders are right. It's Mayweather who wants no part of this.
Boxing has enough terminal problems without Mike Tyson threatening to eat Lennox Lewis' children or Mayweather questioning Pacquiao's sexual orientation.
The reason boxing survives is its baseline respect. The post-fight embraces are real. The shared risks are too great.
There was ugliness before the Thrilla in Manila, the third fight between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, in which Ali called Frazier a "gorilla." Ali barely survived the gloriously primeval fight, and Frazier, in a recent HBO special, gloats indelicately about his role in causing Ali's pugilistic dementia.
Such trash was Ali's act, from Day One, usually delivered with a twinkle. And, yes, he crossed several lines.
But in this case he was already committed to fight Frazier, so he would have to expose his mouth. His woofing never was in the same bush league with Mayweather's.
Letting go of Mayweather-Pacquiao is difficult. The boxing styles are classically contradictory. The questions are there to be answered. Can Pacquiao's legendary hand quickness find Mayweather's jaw? Can Mayweather's post-graduate boxing skills pick off Pacquiao's lusty aggression?
But other questions arrive.
What depths will Mayweather plumb during Fight Week? Do we really need a Good vs. Evil subtext, or any form of hate speech, to augment a fight that should speak for itself?
It's always interesting to discover what you can live without. If Floyd Mayweather Jr. finds such energy and passion in broadcasting from underground, he should stay there.
mwhicker@ocregister.com
Source: ocregister.com
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