Floyd Mayweather (Photo credit: Esther Lin/Showtime) By Eric Johnson: The biggest fight of our generation never happened. Regardless of who you personally believe would have had his hand raised out the end of the bout, believing is all you’ll ever be able to do, this fight hasn’t and probably won’t happen. For years now, their respective fan bases have been at war. Transforming boxing websites and forums into a nightmare for those who have a neutral point of view on the matter.

For years bias opinions have been passed through the grapevine. Opinions on who is more to blame for the fight not happening. Opinions fueled by hate and love, rather than opinions that are supported by facts. In order to completely reap the benefits from this article there are some things you should understand. The first being that Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao are both professional boxers who put their health and life on the line just by participating in their sport. Neither of them are afraid of the other. They are not fans, they are the athletes. They are contemporaries. As we see Manny Pacquiao, and Floyd Mayweather as icons, they see each other as opponents. They are both trained to perform in their sport, to take and give pain. Regardless of their different styles, and although they take and give different levels of punishment, they are both trained to give and receive the shots of the sport. Neither walk in fear of each other. Every time someone says that, it exposes their ignorance of the sport and almost immediately leaves their opinion valueless. Secondly, boxing is a business. As much as we as a boxing republic wish there wasn’t a business aspect tied to the sport because it prevents great fights, there is. Mainly because boxing is a career choice. Careers are tied to money, and all money is tied to some kind of business. Cold Wars between promotion companies do stop big fights, but big fights are only possible due to promotion. Finally, I need you to think in the mindset of a promoter. I need you to remember that as a promoter, every fighter is an investment, and that some investments mean more than others. If you can’t accept these things, stop reading, if you can please continue.

I guess I should start off by stating something fairly obvious. Manny Pacquiao is an exceptional fighter, an outstanding one actually. Seldom does a fighter possess such a rare blend of natural speed and power. Fans don’t gravitate to fighters the way they do Pacquiao unless they are supremely talented, and several tiers above the good fighters. I.E, Mexican superstar Canelo Alvarez has a very strong following, but not one that can rival Manny Pacquiao’s. Regardless of how you feel about his fans or their opinions, it’s an undeniable fact that they support him to the end. Support like that doesn’t happen overnight. That level of support stems from strong belief that develops from continued success. Even after Juan Manuel Marquez’ incredible knockout of the Filipino Star, his fans didn’t seem even slightly deterred. That’s truly admirable. Call it being blind, or call it living in the past, it’s still admirable. The dedication and faith that Pacquiao fans show to their fighter is beautiful. There’s no doubt in my mind that to this day, most Pacquiao fans would bet their house on Manny Pacquiao to defeat Floyd Mayweather in a contest if they were to ever meet in the ring. However, there is one person who wouldn’t. One person who wouldn’t put an investment on that fight, not even the investment himself (Manny Pacquiao), and that person is Bob Arum.

Bob Arum is a businessman, a damn good one actually. Regardless of how you feel about him as a person, he is a very good business man. Businessmen make calculated decisions and they think many steps ahead. I think Arum’s calculations go back as far as 2008. Manny Pacquiao’s and Floyd Mayweather’s knack for mutual opponents started that year. Floyd Mayweather was in the midst of a brief retirement, which in turn rightfully gave Manny Pacquiao his position of #1 Pound For Pound fighter in the world. If Floyd Mayweather isn’t in the race, then that race belongs to Manny Pacquiao. Simple, right? In 2007 Floyd Mayweather defeated Oscar De La Hoya and an undefeated Ricky Hatton. Oscar by Split Decision, and Ricky Hatton by Technical Knockout. In 2009 and 2008, Manny Pacquiao defeated both Hatton and De La Hoya, by knockout and RTD respectively.

Although the De La Hoya fight was at a catch weight –in a weight class he hadn’t fought at in nearly a decade– I’m not so sure that you can blame Pacquiao for that. He doesn’t make the fights, he gets in and does his work. Bob Arum makes the fights. He capitalized off of Oscar’s foolishness, and as a businessman made the best business decision possible. After those fights the public demand for a Money-Pacman fight was at an all-time high, which is exactly why it could never happen. That sounds backwards right? The most lucrative fight in years, arguably in history, isn’t something that a businessman wants? That can’t be right, right? However, it is. Let me explain.

For those of you who don’t already know, Floyd Mayweather was once in Bob Arum’s stable. Present day, it’s hard to ever imagine Mayweather having a boss, but in the early 2000s he did.

The same boss who didn’t want to give him the fights he wanted after his star began to rise. The same boss he had to leave to get a fight with De La Hoya. The same boss Cotto had to leave to get a fight with Mayweather. The same boss De La Hoya had to leave to get a fight with Hopkins. Do you see the pattern? Recently, Nonito Donaire lost via clinic to Guillermo Rigondeaux. Why not a rematch to avenge Donaire’s loss? Most likely because Arum knows he shouldn’t further damage his investment. When a businessman invests in a stock, and that stock plummets, he wouldn’t dare re-enter more money in that stock just because the market says it’ll be different this time around. You only know what you’ve seen, and what you’ve seen is what you believe. There’s no room for “maybes” in business. Especially when that maybe has a past failure following it like a bad infection. In Lehman’s terms high risk, low reward, right? If you were a promoter, would you put him back in there? Absolutely not.

Now, remember earlier when I said that in a businessmen’s mind some investments mean more than others? This came into play in 2009 when Mayweather returned from his retirement. His first fight back was against Marquez. Mayweather wasn’t represented by Top Rank anymore but was now easily the biggest star in boxing. Which explains why it was so easy for this fight to be made. I think this was a test run for Arum. Marquez wasn’t the biggest star in his stable, and he was going against the biggest star on the market and potential Manny Pacquiao opponent. High reward, low risk. If Marquez had won, the argument would have been made that Pacquiao would more than likely make easy work of Mayweather. If Marquez would have loss (as he did) then all it does is add more fuel to the Money-Pacman hype train. I believe Arum was hoping Mayweather looked a bit worn out, or as if he had lost a few steps through his retirement. The exact opposite happened. He saw Marquez completely outclassed, and borderline embarrassed by Mayweather. A Mayweather who not only had not lost a step, but looked like he had a new set of legs. A smarter, craftier, more mature, more polished Mayweather than ever before. A fighter who would be a stylistic nightmare for his greatest investment. What was going in the world of boxing after that fight you ask?

The public was raging for a Floyd-Manny matchup. A lot of that rage was directed toward Floyd Mayweather. The public was convinced that Mayweather was ducking Pacquiao, that he was afraid of him. So as a businessman, what do you do when you see that none of the heat is on you for not making a fight, and it is still in high demand? You stall. You stall until judgment day, you stall until the pigs fly. That’s exactly what Arum did, because there was more money in not making a Mayweather-Pacquiao fight, then there was in making one. There were multi-million dollar fights being made from the hype of that fight, that didn’t even included the fighters the hype was built off.
Let’s say that fight had gotten made, and Mayweather embarrassed Pacquiao. I’m not saying he would have, but let’s say for the sake of this theory, he did. Where does that leave Arum? With no more hype, his fighter exposed, the hype fabricated, and the end result a pitiful one? It leaves him at a dead end. This Mayweather-Pacquiao situation is one of the few where the mystery was worth more than the conclusion. Manny Pacquiao has been paired with Mayweather’s leftovers for a while now, and with the exception of Marquez, has looked just as good against them, even if he has faced lesser versions of them. Most of the public doesn’t think about versions, they think about a name. Never mind that Cotto and De La Hoya were at catch weights. Never mind that Hatton was shot, never mind that Mosley was coming off of a loss to Floyd. All that matters to the public are the names Cotto, De La Hoya, Mosley, and Hatton. Once again, I do not blame Pacquiao or consider him a ducker, or a cherry-picker, because he fights who’s put in front of him. It’s really an ingenious strategy by Arum. Match him with fighters his rival has already beat, have him fight them at their lesser versions and insist you want to make the fight against the rival, while also deflecting most of the public’s hate to him. All the while knowing you have no intentions of making the fight. It’s beautiful and sick at the same time. It makes me sick as a fan of boxing that greed can put an end to a fight that needed to be made, but it’s incredible to see just how far a businessman will go for good business. If that fight would have happened there would have been one huge lump sum of profit promised, and then the possibility of not so much money in the aftermath of it. He made all of this money surviving off of the hype. The only thing that had to be constant was both Mayweather’s and Pacquiao’s dominance. One of those did.

I’ve always thought that Mayweather would have beaten Pacquiao. I don’t know for sure, but no one knows for sure. We all just have opinions. I believe Arum didn’t think that Pacquiao could beat Mayweather. I believe out of all the fighters who have left Top Rank in search of bigger ambitions, Mayweather’s departure hurt him the worst. I think he knew just how good Mayweather was. Evident in the Mayweather-Judah press tour in which he stated “I say this today to you, and I really believe it and it’s true, that since Ali, there hasn’t been a better fighter, a better boxer than this kid Pretty Boy Floyd Mayweather. This young man has the technique and the ability that puts him in my book ahead of such greats as Sugar Ray Leonard, Roberto Duran, Marvin Hagler and the all the other great fighters that I’ve seen in my career. There is nobody who combines all the skills of Pretty Boy Floyd Mayweather.” Now that could have been a promoter hyping up his fighter, but let’s think about some contributing factors that may have proven this to be his actual opinion. For one, he has promoted Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Leonard, and Marvin Hagler. All of whom, have never went across Arum, and some of whom retired Top Rank boxers. If he had said, “ I believe Floyd Mayweather is better than Oscar De La Hoya” then I would immediately call his bluff, as he would be expected to say that due to the bad blood he’s had with Oscar post his departure. Also, seeing that he represented those fighters, it’s not bad blood brought on by never being able to represent them. Secondly, I’ve never heard him ever say something of the nature about Manny Pacquiao, or De La Hoya. Two of his most promising boxers. Take that with the fact that at one point De La Hoya was bringing in more profit than Mayweather at the time of his bout against Judah, and you have enough sufficient information to actually believe Arum when he says that. He’s always praised Pacquiao as the next big thing, but never as the biggest thing, or the best thing. Which is why I’m sure he never really wanted to put Pacquiao in the same ring with Floyd, because if he did lose it would mark the end of an era, and more importantly the end of an investment. Maybe Pacquiao would have won, but like I said before, there is no room for “maybes” in boxing. Profit from the stall was definite.

As I stated the earlier the only constant needed was dominance by both Mayweather and Pacquiao, and one of those constants ended. Manny Pacquiao has lost his last two fights, one by controversial split decision and one by knockout. His star has seemed to be dim, seeing that the knockout was done by a man Mayweather had a relatively easy night with. The hype for a Mayweather-Pacquiao is still there because of the names alone, but that hype is at an all-time low. People would still pay to see it, as having those two in a ring opposite each other would be an event in itself. It’s a fight that would surely bring in over a million buys, but the casual fan isn’t as interested in it, and that factor was the most important throughout the hype’s reign. There were people who hadn’t watched boxing a day in their lives who knew that fight was a must see. However according to my theory that fight is more likely than ever to happen now. The mystery isn’t more lucrative than the conclusion anymore. People don’t want to see how they match up against common foes. People don’t want to see who lasts longer. All that has been figured out. However, the event and the names involved still mean big business and big business is all that Arum wants. Regardless if you believe that Manny Pacquiao is on the decline, his time as an investment is. There is no argument to be made about him being in the same position he was in three years ago. Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao are no longer 1a and 1b on the pound for pound list. They are no longer seen as the unbeatable duo. They are no longer Larry Bird and Magic Johnson or Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali. There is Floyd Mayweather, then there is Manny Pacquiao. They are still contemporaries but are not seen in the same light anymore.

Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather were never the blame for this fight not happening. The blame goes to a businessman who was doing his job. Formulating a plan that was bulletproof but not punch proof, as in one punch Marquez pretty much shattered Arum’s intentions. When you combine the discontent that Arum has for Floyd for leaving, combined with his love of business and money, the greatest fight of our generation was never on his bucket list. When a window finally opened in May of 2012, he decided that it couldn’t be made due to the need of a new stadium that would hold more people. This was foolish because I’m sure the ticket prices could have been anything and it would have still sold out. This was a demand that was never brought up before that window was finally available. A demand that seemed random and almost unheard of, a demand that was business demand of a businessman. It was a demand that had an excuse, (the time it would take to build) the reason the excuse could work, (Floyd Mayweather’s imprisonment deadline) and the obvious backup plan (further extending the hype, and keeping his investment alive) that would assure him more money.

So the next time you say Mayweather or Pacquiao are to blame or are afraid of one another. Or you start to think you can actually fathom how a fighters mind works, remember that you can’t. You haven’t taken shots, you haven’t put the hours in the gym, and you haven’t tasted the sweet taste of victory or witnessed the distaste that a man saying he’s better than you at what you’ve dedicated your life to can bring. Boxing is the most competitive sport there is. Besides the fact that the man across from you actually wants to hurt you, and the fact that only two people can partake in every outing, and the fact that you can only receive verbal help on your matchup (no substitutions), it is a sport where sometimes the better man doesn’t always win. It’s a sport of theatre, of where one second can change an entire outcome, and where egos are more involved than in any other sport. You can’t think like a boxer, and neither can I, but I’m sure both of these men wanted this fight. However you can think like a business man, we make business choices every day. Small in comparison to Arum’s but buying lunch and paying for your method of transportation are is considered a business choices because there are alternatives. The worst part is that Arum’s business choice resulted in the biggest fight of our generation never happening. Maybe Floyd Mayweather would have dominated Pacquiao. Maybe Pacquiao would have gotten a flash knockout in a rare exchange. Maybe there would have been double knockout. Maybe it would have ended in a draw, setting up easily the biggest fight in the history boxing. We’ll never know. I guess I should end this by stating something fairly obvious. Business sucks.