See You In November, Mayweather/Pacquiao
After much hype, hysteria and hope from the Boxing community, the Floyd Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao fight that was to take place on March 13th on Las Vegas was pronounced dead by Bob Arum and Top Rank Boxing.
I want you to do a Google search on Mayweather vs. Pacquiao right now and see the legion of wounded Boxing fans showing all eight steps of the grieving process. People are really beside themselves over this fight not happening over a simple drug test. Does that sound right to you? Doesn’t sound right to me either. Didn’t sound right to begin with honestly.
Manny Pacquiao has never had the air of Performance Enhancement surrounding him or his camp. No whispers, no suspicion, maybe a few comments about how large his head is, but nothing serious. It was a very interesting turn of events when Floyd Mayweather’s camp, backed by the powerful Golden Boy Promotions asked for a thorough Olympic style drug testing to be conducted for this fight which includes several blood samples when Pacquiao isn’t known for being a dirty fighter.
Now for the average joe who’s faced with the prospect of a $30 Million dollar payday, they could drain all the blood from my body for that much money. I don’t for a second believe this was about the blood testing or allegations of PED usage. The battle is much, much deeper than that.
Through the subcutaneous layers of Mayweather’s bold claims and Pacquiao’s unwillingness to budge are two larger forces at work; Bob Arum’s old guard, Top Rank and Oscar De La Hoya’s new guard Golden Boy. Golden Boy represents Mayweather while Top Rank represents Pacquiao and both fighters have given their respective promoters millions in revenue for the epic battles they’ve waged in a Boxing ring. This fight wouldn’t be the first time that Top Rank and Golden Boy have co-promoted a fight, but I believe in this Sports climate where Boxing’s popularity is at an all time low, the winner of this fight could be propelled into super stardom and with that, their promoter to reap the benefits from future fights.
In my opinion, Top Rank is fighting to remain relevant in the Boxing world. When compared with Golden Boy whose fights appear frequently on HBO, Top Rank’s own Pay Per View events are struggling for buys and look poorly attended. If not for Pacquiao, Top Rank doesn’t have another superstar Boxer to really bank their promotion on. Kelly Pavlik? Chavez Jr.? Not even in the same atmosphere as Mayweather. Top Rank’s glory days of Ali, Frazier, Mancini, Foreman, Leonard, Hagler and Hearns are long gone. Two of their bigger names De La Hoya and Mayweather defected to De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions which has become the largest Boxing promotion in the World.
Top Rank seems out of touch, like Boxing has evolved and left Bob Arum behind. When Golden Boy promotes Latino boxers, they promote them along side their standard events, seeing the importance of not segregating that all too important legion of Boxers. Top Rank regularly promotes their “Latino Heat” pay events that are embarrassingly low budget and held in a dusty, claustrophobic Bull Ring in Mexico where I question whether or not the fight is even sanctioned.
WIth all the glory and ultimately, control over Professional Boxing’s climate for years to come at stake, this three ring circus of hype was well orchestrated between Top Rank and Golden Boy to generate a hunger and desire for this fight. Why give the people what they want right when they want it? Why not make them wait a little longer. Maybe that $59.95 Pay Per View price can move up to $69.95 because people demand to witness this fight. It’s all about Money, Timing and Control.
By effectively dividing the Boxing world into three groups, Pro-Mayweather, Pro-Pacquiao and Pro-Mayweather/Pacquiao, you generate three rabid fanbases that are at each other’s throat right now debating on who’s to blame for this fight not going down. Meanwhile, Golden Boy and Top Rank sit back and wait for the demand to build even more before revisiting this megafight again.
When the smoke clears, I guarantee you that Boxing will never be the same. When one hand is raised, one promoter will reign supreme over Boxing for years to come. This fight is too important to let one promoter play a game of chess and expose your King to unnecessary threat. Bob Arum has played far too many rounds of Chess with fellow promoters and my guess is he stood a better chance of clearing the board and flipping over the table rather than trying to guard his King in a match he couldn’t win. When all is said and done, one fighter and one promoter will be left with the cruicial Checkmate.
