Opinion Big Two need to box for the fans

Floyd Mayweather Jr. hovers on the horizon eternally for Manny Pacquiao.

November 28, 2013 02:56 AM IST First published on: Nov 28, 2013 at 02:56 AM IST

Floyd Mayweather Jr. hovers on the horizon eternally for Manny Pacquiao. Mayweather,though thousand miles away from the ring that night,had looked undisputable at the top of the welterweight heap,after the Filipino,an eight-division world champion was knocked cold in a sixth round debacle against Juan Manuel Marquez last December. And the Mayweather chorus is building up once again now that Pacquiao has battered Brandon Rios this weekend in Macau. Dreamy fans have begun chattering about a potential showdown,which could become the biggest money fight in the history of boxing,should the two agree to fetch up.

After a torrid 2012 where Pacquiao suffered successive setbacks against Tim Bradley and Marquez,and given that his last knockout came in a 2009 bruising of Miguel Cotto,talks of the Pacquiao-Mayweather super-fight had been slowly fading after reaching a crescendo,and spectacularly crashing three years ago. The two,it would seem,were the boxing world’s star-crossed glovers.

First it was Mayweather’s drug testing demands,then the haggling over the fight purse split from pay-per-views (PPV – 45-55 to 30-70),and finally Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum had dithered citing his prize fighter’s recovery from a cut,and later legal hassles. Now that Pacman has undergone Olympic-style drug-testing in Macau,and his trainer Freddie Roach believes that Mayweather will not be able to dodge the obvious Pacquiao-choice given that in fulfilling his four-fight contract there’s not many around who qualify as legitimately PPV draws,a showdown looks distinctly inevitable,in fact fixed to a September 2014 deadline.

The duo owe this face-off to their sport,which has allowed anyone from agents to promoters to the HBO-Showtime TV tussle to financial factors dictate this showdown – everyone except the two fighters,it would seem. It is only logical that the sport’s No 1 and No 2 punch it out for the title,and fans ought to settle for nothing less. The cerebral chess sorted out its championship cycle to determine the champ and challenger,it’s boxing’s turn to make the right moves in that direction. Starting with the Mayweather-Pacquiano fight,taking it out of fantasy realms where it currently slumbers.

Shivani is a senior assistant editor based in Mumbai

shivani.naik@expressindia.com