By Jim Dower: Manny Pacquiao thinks that Floyd Mayweather Jr. is jealous of his achievements in boxing, saying to Greg Leon of Boxing Talk, “I just think he [Mayweather] and his team are scared of me and are very jealous of my achievements because I have surpassed him.” I think Pacquiao may have a good point. He may have surpassed Mayweather in terms of significant wins during his career. In the past couple of years, Pacquiao has beaten Juan Manuel Marquez, Miguel Cotto, Oscar De La Hoya, and Ricky Hatton. Mayweather has beaten De La Hoya and Hatton as well, but he didn’t look nearly as good at beating them than Pacquiao did.
There’s no comparison, really, between the way that Pacquiao took care of Hatton and De La Hoya compared to the way that Mayweather beat them. Pacquiao totally dominated both of them, whereas Mayweather had to go deep into the fight to get wins over both. Mayweather also didn’t fight Miguel Cotto, even though Cotto has been one of the best fighters in the welterweight division for a number of years. Pacquiao, to his credit, moved up in weight to face and beat Cotto by a 12th round stoppage last year.
That took a lot of courage for Pacquiao to take that fight and he did remarkably well in dominating the bigger fighter and taking him out in the 12th. Without Pacquiao, there’s a question whether Mayweather would have the urgency to seek out a tough opponent like Shane Mosley. It’s good that Mayweather is fighting, no doubt, but you also have to wonder whether Mayweather would have bothered. After all, Mayweather never chose to fight Mosley all these years until now, when Pacquiao has become boxing’s number #1 cash cow.
The timing for Mayweather fighting Mosley is really telling. If it’s not a move done to match Pacquiao and show that he can accomplish as much as the Filipino star, I don’t know what is. But I think it’s good for boxing the rivalry. If Mayweather is indeed jealous of Pacquiao, then perhaps we’ll see more fights between Mayweather and top level fighters similar to Shane. Ideally, the fight that boxing fans want to see if Mayweather vs. Pacquiao. However, Mayweather is going to have to drop the idea of having Pacquiao take the random blood tests.
Mayweather needs to give in this once. He might want to have his opponents take blood tests for the remainder of his career, but he needs to make an exception this once for the Pacquiao fight. He’s got nothing really lose. This isn’t a weight lifting event. Even Pacquiao were to be using growth hormones, which he doesn’t look like he is, it wouldn’t help him beat Mayweather. Those kinds of things don’t make a person a better fighter.
Comments are closed.