By Babatis Banda: With a win against the number two rated Pound for Pound fighter in the world Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (42-1-1-30), Floyd Mayweather Jr. (45-0-26) cemented his place in boxing history as one of the great, if not the greatest of all time. Like it has been for most of the time he walked into the ring, Floyd reduced Alvarez to a 2nd tier fighter on the night.
As powerful as he is and as game as Canelo was, Floyd took away all the strengths of Canelo’s game away. This is what he does, take away your strengths, break you down and beat you up.
While the boxing purists, the experts, the trainers and boxers alike are appreciating Floyd’s achievements, the marauding gangs sworn to ever criticize Mayweather are at it again. This time fuming with more hate and ever bubbling incoherency that are reflective of their innermost misery and pain.
We are back to step one. Floyd has cleaned out all the big names in the welter-weight division and again the Pacquiao noise is raising its ugly head. In the space of time, from the time the controversy started to now, Mayweather has picked up 3 tittle belts. He has not only fought champions or fighters coming off the most impressive wins of their careers, but way younger and dangerous opponents.
Arguments, or is it discussions of whether Mayweather Jr. as an all-time great are ever on the increase. This is an exact opposite mirror to Pacquiao. He has lost the little he had, lost two fights back to back and his knock out by Marquez was a concern to everybody. It was simply horrible and frightening. In the exact space of time, Mayweather has cemented his position as the pound-for-pound great and the face of the sport with a huge money contract. He has so far grossed higher than any other athlete in the entire history of sports making him the highest paid, two years in succession.
The fact that he is in the discussion as an all-time great says it all. Just to be in the discussion is enough, confirmation will come later, when he is long gone. I am for the idea though, that Mayweather should fight with Pacquiao before he hangs up the leathers. Not that the fight will make any difference in people’s minds on how they view Mayweather, but just for the fun of it. Even if Mayweather was to beat up Pacquiao, something that is more likely than not, those that don’t like him will always have something in the negative to say about him.
For this fight to happen, a number of issues must be clear. It is Pacquiao that needs this fight and not Mayweather. Pacquiao is looking to redeem his name and status, and so he should understand that at this point in time he has ZERO bargaining power. He has no belt to put on the line and he is recovering from a bad fall from grace. Pacquiao needs to come out CLEAR about wanting this fight. He should stop speaking as the biggest thing in boxing. He needs to sate clearly that he wants the fight and that he will take the test (RBT), the full test. He needs to swallow his pride and accept even less than the $40 million that Floyd offered him earlier. His win against Mayweather would be worth more than gold and so his priority should be to make the fight happen. If he comes out clean in these matters, we will have this fight.
Pacquiao in my eyes is a really good fighter. He belongs together with Marquez, Robert Duran, Julio Cesar Chavez Sr., Oscar De La Hoya, “Sugar” Shane Mosley and the like. Floyd is atop, in his own space and will go down as one of the best that ever stepped in the ring, an ATG Foreal. The Pacquiao factor is a sad one, but important in a competitive sport like boxing. We welcome it!
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