YOU have to hand it to Floyd Mayweather Jr. He is the master of hype and is peerless when it comes to promoting himself. No other boxer comes close, not even Manny Pacquiao. And he loves to hijack a moment and turn it about himself.
A few years back, when Manny Pacquiao was about to face Ricky Hatton, Floyd Mayweather tried to hijack the narrative by announcing hours before the bout that he was going to face Manny’s bitter rival Juan Manuel Marquez in a few months. Unfortunately for him, nobody paid much attention because Pacquiao scored one of the best wins of his careers--one of the best fights in boxing for that matter.
Last Sunday, Mayweather did something similar. Hours before the biggest fight in boxing (Alvarez vs. GGG), he tried to wiggle his way into the narrative by announcing that he was going to unretire (again) to fight Manny Pacquiao (again). Unfortunately for him (and fortunately for the sport), Canelo and GGG put on one of the most exciting shows in memory, going toe-to-toe for 12 rounds (unlike Mayweather vs. Pacquiao 1), and the only thing boxing fans thought after Sunday was: We want Alvarez vs. GGG Part 3.
And the people who bothered to pay attention to Mayweather’s announcement? Well, they pointed out that it’s going to be a bout between a 42-year-old retiree, who has only fought thrice since 2015, and a soon-to-be 39-year-old, who is a part-time senator. And of course, who could forget their farce of a first fight, which came some five years after their prime, when they should have fought? Now, they want to fight again? As a bunch of 40-year-olds? As veteran writer Al S. Mendoza aptly pointed it out: “This is boxing, there’s a sucker born every minute, bring it on!” Mayweather and Pacquiao won’t be the first ageing boxers who are going to milk their popularity for every dollar in a final fight that shouldn’t happen, and they won’t be the last. Bernard Hopkins, then 45, fought Roy Jones Jr., then 41, in 2010, years after dodging each other. That rematch too, came 17 years after they first fought.
But back to the drama at hand. Pacquiao vs. Mayweather 2 for December 2018. Details of this fight, that will be hyped beyond measure, will come out next week. What’s going to be the narrative? Of course they won’t go for this suggestion: “We fooled you once, we’d like to fool you again into giving us millions for a fight that shouldn’t happen.” The most obvious “sell” for this fight would be that Manny is going to be that boxer who has that real chance at ending Mayweather’s undefeated streak; that this would be better than the first one because he’d be healthy and that this would be better than Floyd’s last fight because he’d be fighting a boxer, not someone pretending to be one.
This fight will sell, but not as much as the first one. This is boxing as my idol Al Mendoza pointed out, there’s a fool born yesterday (or would be, a day before this fight) who’d buy this one on PPV.
As for me. I’ll just read the accounts of what the journalists who’d bother to cover this farce say.