Mayweather and Pacquiao are at it again
By: LeoThree thousand, nine hundred, and sixty-seven days.
Ten years, ten months, ten days and counting.
That is how long it has been since Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao fought. Kenny Bayless got the assignment as the titans met at the MGM Grand Garden Arena to unify Mayweather’s WBA and WBC welterweight titles with Pacquiao’s WBO version (the IBF champion at the time was Kell Brook). The pay-per-view was $100 and was available on both HBO and Showtime. The fight was not what an avid fan of boxing (see: nerd) would consider competitive: Burt Clements and Glenn Feldman scored the bout 116-112 (8-4) while Dave Moretti turned in 118-110 (10-2). I personally agreed with Dave Moretti’s score and the only way I felt someone could reach an 8-4 conclusion was if they were being as generous to Pacquiao as possible. I find it very telling that giving Pacquiao every benefit of the doubt would yield 8-4 Mayweather.
The years leading up to the mega-fight wereas defined by Floyd Mayweather’s lavish “Money” lifestyle that was funded by his extremely successful PPV events, which was in turn fueled by his undefeated record and brash persona. The idea of being undefeated had transformed from being a mark of the customary “inflated” record one could expect of a burgeoning prospect racking up wins as they build a profile to being the defining characteristic of a fighter worthy of adulation. Manny Pacquiao had lost his “0” back in 1996 in a relatively quick stoppage, but only the “Money Team” devotees really held it against him. Pacquiao was commanding purses and amassing accolades to rival Mayweather. And after years of “will they, won’t they”, we finally got the fight that even non-fight fans had been waiting for.
May 2nd, 2015, finally arrives.
Please contact for photo credit
Please contact for photo credit
The fight played out the way most boxing fans expected. Regardless of which side of the street people landed, the questions had finally been answered. The “MayPac” era had reached its apex, and the next generation of fighters were lined up to take the reins as Mayweather and Pacquiao rattled off some more fights before calling it quits in 2017 and 2021 respectively. Pacquiao clearly kept going long after his encounter with Mayweather, but the results were mixed – what one would expect from a legendary fighter clearly on the downslope. But we were finally getting what I had been hoping for since 2015: the end of the “not undefeated = bum” era.
We finally got elite operators that were imperfect. Shawn Porter lost to Kell Brook, Danny Garcia lost to Porter and Keith Thurman, Keith Thurman stumbled against a spry Pacquiao, Brook “dared to be great” against GGG. Emanuel Navarrete and O’Shaquie Foster, the pre-eminent Super Featherweights, have losses. Brandon Figueroa and Stephen Fulton, high-end Featherweights, have losses. Alberto Puello and G. Antuanne Russell have losses. The mark of undefeated returned to the mark of a prospect: Andy Hiraoka stepped into the Russell fight undefeated and demonstrated that there are levels to this and Russell is on a higher one. Don’t worry, Andy, I am certain you will be better with the experience.
The point is that we were finally getting over the nonsense of undefeated fighters being the only one’s “worthy” of celebration. We were finally getting to the point of universally loving and accepting flawed, imperfect heroes. Say what you want about MMA, one thing the fanbase does well is understand losses in their full context. Did the fighter lose a close decision? Did the fighter get stopped within the first minute? A fight fan must watch the fights to understand the context of a loss. As our friend [Aussie] Jacob said, there are better metrics by which we can determine a fighter’s “value”, and an easy one is title defenses.
With Mayweather coming back to fight Pacquiao later this year, the emphasis on his undefeated record is going to be reintroduced to the boxing fan zeitgeist. I hope that my fellow boxing degenerates will join me in continuing to brush aside the “0”, not because Mayweather’s record is unimpressive – his hall of fame has a hall of fame – but because we know that “not undefeated = bum” is nonsense. Will I be watching? Yes. Who do I want to win? I genuinely don’t care. We all know what this is, so let’s make sure to keep that in mind.
