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The fight before the fight is taking its toll

January 7, 2010 06:06 PM | Posted by   Chris Iorfida  

By now you've read the report. Floyd Mayweather got into a flap with rapper Rick Ross at the opening of Vanity in Las Vegas, until the helpful mediation of P. Diddy cooled heads, according to TMZ.

OK, but it was too good not to pass on. You can't make this stuff up.

You've probably heard Bob Arum indicate that the Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao superfight is dead. Arum said Mayweather won't back off his demand for full Olympic-style blood testing, which has never been used before for a big bout.

You probably heard it because Arum issued his latest Chicken Little clarion call to several media outlets either while under a mediator's gag order, or at best, within about two nanoseconds of the gag order ending. The octogenarian promoter of Top Rank has said this bout was off on just about a weekly basis over the last month.

Remember that he's had a longstanding feud with Mayweather, whom he once promoted, and to a lesser degree with Oscar De La Hoya, another former fighter of his, and whose Golden Boy Promotions, along with manager Leonard Ellerbe, is representing Mayweather.

This is not to say the March 13 date isn't in jeopardy. But let's remember that date was chosen primarily because Pacquiao's running for Congress (again) in May in his native Philippines. It was always an ambitious target from the standpoint of how much promotion and marketing will go into this bout.

I'm not an expert on Filipino politics, but would Pacquiao get elected by the good people there if he hasn't yet fought Mayweather? Do they want Manny the politician or Manny the boxer extraordinaire/action movie star/singer?

And if these two guys fight the likes of Paulie Malignaggi and Yuri Foreman in March instead, it's not like they're going to lose (well, in the ring; I can't imagine what the gate receipts would be like). So we'd still end up at the same place, with No. 1 and No. 2 in the sport (you debate the order) looking for a major payday.

They've already hammered out the complex money details in what will probably be the most lucrative fight ever, and you can't downplay that important fact.

I totally don't buy the premise that this fight will be less interesting or popular at the box office if it is held in September or early November - traditional beachheads when the sport isn't competing with the stretch drives of the big U.S. pro and college sports for mindshare. The last big superfight held in March was the first fight Lennox Lewis-Evander Holyfield fight, 11 years ago.

Besides, an injury to either fighter ahead of the March date would have likely left no alternative until at least September anyways.

I remember when everyone tuned out after Marvin Hagler-Thomas Hearns and Larry Holmes-Gerry Cooney were postponed the first time. No one cared. Seriously, I've been racking my brain all day to come up with a fight of this magnitude that you could argue was legitimately wounded by a postponement of a number of months.

Mayweather or Golden Boy Promotions have not commented on the record yet, just two days after retired U.S. federal judge Daniel Weinstein, who specializes in mediation, met with the sides for a reported nine hours.

So howsabout we all take a deep breath, wait a few weeks before proffering doomsday opinions on the future of the sport should this fight not take place in March. Heck, maybe could even wait to hear the other side or the mediator actually comment first.

Nothing's dead in boxing until someone actually is dead.

On hypocrisy

The situation is of course a mess and it's fair to say that none of this is good for boxing. But to say, as many have already taken to the blogs to do, that this is why boxing's no longer a mainstream sport is silly.

Oh, I see, a big part of the UFC's popularity is because Dana White has such a genteel manner about him, has never said anything offensive or controversial, and has always paid his fighters a fair share. Sure.

It has nothing to do with the fact that at the same time boxing was shooting itself in the foot in a myriad of ways and making itself harder to find for sports fans, losing a generation of young fans in the late 1980s and early 90s, things like mixed-martial arts, pro wrestling, and video games were all gaining in popularity. In addition a variety of other societal changes over that time recalibrated the attention span in a way that, say, a five-round fight might be more palatable for a bunch of young people than a 12-round fight.

It's the business of MMA that keeps the fans coming back.

I write this hours away from the Texas-Alabama game for the BSC championship. Myself and millions of others are going to abstain from watching this one, just because the bowl game system is absurd, contrived and often leaves someone on the outside with a legitimate complaint, arguably even more so than boxing does. Add in the fact that every week there's stories about megalomaniacal coaches, unscrupulous recruiting practices, college athletes allegedly committing crimes and getting a bogus education, etc.

So watch the fight - if it happens – or don’t, but spare the righteousness and scorn over the unseemliness of it all. Boxing ain't alone.

The Bright Side

In the meantime, a spate of exciting bouts has helped reinvigorate the sport over the past two years, and there's no sign that's going to stop in 2010. Shane Mosley and Andre Berto fight in a matter of days in a bout that will provide the legitimate next-in-line for a Mayweather-Pacquiao winner, brash Briton David Haye will get people to notice the heavyweight division again win or lose, especially if he fights one of the Klitschkos, and the super middleweight tournament comes to a head this year, featuring at least two of the top 15 fighters in the world.

In addition, there appears to be momentum in making the following important bouts for the sport, to name a few Kelly Pavlik-Paul Williams, Yuriorkis Gamboa-Juan Manuel Lopez, and Chad Dawson-Jean Pascal.

If you're a general sports fan reading this, you may have said to yourself during that last paragraph, "Who is that?"

Remember, you probably said the same thing about three or four years ago about Pacquiao. The sport goes on and will, despite the never-ending reports of its demise.

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