About MayPac2

Click, click… “BoOm”! Now that you’ve baited us, just make the damn fight. 

Nobody asked you to tell us that there’d be a rematch with esteemed eight division conqueror and reigning WBA welterweight champion Senator Manny “Pac-Man” Pacquiao (62-7-2, 39KOs) last year. 

We didn’t care…Yet.

Nobody asked for an Andre Berto farewell fight, when that fight was supposed to be against Keith Thurman, absolutely admirable in defeat last Saturday night at MGM Grand in Las Vegas. The same “One-Time” who dropped: 

“You better. Not. Duck Me. Son.”

No one asked you to defend ‘your brand’ or offer that a ‘legacy is attached’ to yours. Isn’t that you at ringside cheering wildly for Pacquiao during his rematch for Erik Morales in 2006? He’s not been to one of your fights, ever, yet there you are, a fan, then and now, studying your greatest adversary while hardly able to supervise your own behavior — let alone an ’employee’. Were that “The Truth”, he doesn’t duck out of an arena to avoid questions about a fight the fans want. 

Again. 

And about that legacy. You’re the only one who spoke of it. Would it only be a concern that his legacy proved greater than your own from a fan perspective? The same fans you don’t want demanding something you’re capable of supplying. Something like a rematch on a ‘level playing field’.

Are you sick of “Money”?

For clarity, just before you did the unthinkable — knock out immensely popular MMA star Tenshin Nasukawa…

..a child from Japan [in Japan], in relative terms, presumably for ‘clout chasing’ in an exhibition — it was “you” speaking of a rematch with Pacquiao near the end of 2018. Or, was this the idea of your “Boss” perhaps? Afterall, it’s a fight neither Pacquiao nor the fans were asking for. But now, all of a sudden him and the public, whose appetite is now fully prepared for a real fistic entree not provided on May 2, 2015, are just supposed to leave you the fuck alone?

God he’s brilliant.

This is classic Floyd, who along with Mayweather Promotions CEO Leonard Ellerbe, gives us TMT and arguably the greatest promotional tandem the boxing world has ever known. There is no Bob Arum or Top Rank in the way to impede progress, blame, or stall negotiations this time. Al Haymon, a brilliant African American, would be completely at the helm of this one, presiding over two iconic minorities of presumed good and evil for the championship of each other. 

Haymon can now, ostensibly, be responsible for an epic return saga without the backdrop of what some would call an air of White Supremacy attached to the only remaining ultimate superfight boxing can offer. Tyson Fury Vs Deontay Wilder? Please. With Manny and Floyd, one of them is literally a walking Dollar; the other, a transformative world leader with a spiritual magnetism that can move nations. 

Throw out all the controversy over PED’s and phantom injury, that was part of the original script. Throw out the Conor McGregor farce. Mayweather’s return would feature an unknown curiosity, for he hasn’t been in a truly meaningful bout since Andre Berto. Be honest, did you think he’d lose that? Floyd wouldn’t exactly be Sugar Ray Leonard returning from a three year hiatus to confront his Marvelous Marvin Hagler. No. Mayweather is villainous. This would be a purest boxing Mike Tyson known for invisible defense at his remembered best, coming back to face a Filipino icon of Ali proportion, who wants to leave him scrambling on all fours to locate a mouthpiece Buster Douglas’d from his face.

This one has the chance to be “The Godfather II” in thematic terms, while potentially turning Ali Vs Frazier III, the Thrilla in Manila, into “The Godfather III” by comparison. I know that sounds hyperbolic — but it’s not. What made Ali Vs Frazier so epic in 1975 was pride. They both had the will to fight for it, after bereft of the physical gifts that made them special. Mayweather is no longer the “Money” who bought out “Pretty Boy Floyd” to construct “TBE” — a fighter we actually saw debut in his swan song with Berto.

We could expect a more stationary edition of that Mayweather in 2020, attempting to control the joystick of Pac-Man before forcing him to malfunction. He knows, despite the on cue claims from Adrien Broner that Floyd would “fuck Pacquiao up” in a rematch…

..that he would not be able to replicate a game plan Max Kellerman referred to as “tricky” in execution. That Mayweather, for reasons only he can answer, supposedly needed unprecedented IV’s just prior to facing Pacquiao, despite being 150lbs at the 30 day check point. For the rematch, Floyd would very much have to be Tom Brady in the pocket and pick Manny apart with limited mobility. He’d have to show a willingness to absorb the pressure and punishment that nearly broke a supremely confident and 30 year-old Thurman.

He’d have to fight for pride.

Floyd would not be able to operate what Keith referred to as a “7/5 Principle”, which involves a match more about not losing more than 5 rounds as opposed to winning the fight. When considering the savage body attack Pacquiao unveiled on Thurman, in a way unseen since his complete demolition of a prime and vintage Miguel Cotto in November 2009, we’d have to believe “The Best Ever” could out-amaze the exploits of a 43 year-old Bernard Hopkins, who at that time was completely erasing a young Kelly Pavlik with a No. 2 pencil. If 40’s the new 30 and Pacquiao just erased a member of that club from this generation’s best, then Mayweather can prove, once and for all, that he just may be “The Best Ever”.