By Rasheed Catapang: Team Mayweather is speaking now, going as far as denying that a negotiation to fight Pacquiao ever took place. However, they’re still not answering the only question that really matters: When will Mayweather fight Pacquiao? Will he ever?
The words of Floyd Mayweather Jr. himself after a lengthy silence require deciphering. “I’m not interested in rushing to do anything right now. I’m not really thinking about boxing right now… Just relaxing.”
Sweet.
The words are coy and utterly unfit for a king. Mayweather, if he still fancies himself one, has to demand respect. Pacquiao, wanting to fill his coffer and all, declared war to Floyd. A king is not supposed to just move aside to avoid the onslaught.
Floyd just did.
What had happened to Floyd and where’s his swagger?
Say a kid took a bully’s lunch, demanded his pocket money and everything he had. Will the bully ask first what the kid is on before administering a beating?
Or the world’s giving you truckloads of money and a chance for you to prove what you’ve been saying all along. Won’t it be right to just take the money and do your thing?
Actions contrary to the norm would only mean something else. Floyd’s words in response to a direct challenge have no meaning.
Mayweather appears content to just grab the p4p crown through the poll, to battle it out in the court of public opinion – knowing full well that a fantasy fight concocted in man’s mind is winnable, considering he’s perceived to have the more superior skill set. However, once enclosed in the four corners of the ring, reality is sure to take an awful turn. Not having a loss because of a carefully managed boxing career, he sure will not welcome a world of hurt.
And a world of hurt is really what Pacquiao is all about.
The Golden Boy was still golden and shining before he came across the Pacmonster. But Oscar Dela Hoya had learned through 8 painful rounds what the little devil is able to give and what he, in the receiving end, is not able to take. In the face of perpetual onslaught, Dela Hoya hoped for the KO that never came. The experience, which for him is best left unremembered, was enough to make him retire.
The Hitman still had a perfect record at 10 stones (140lbs), never losing his mark at that weight, before being offered the hit on Pacquiao. It was over in 2 rounds and Ricky Hatton got what Dela Hoya had wished for himself. Hatton never really knew what hit him. Ricky was flattened and his career as a boxer is yet to recover, one step to retirement in each passing day – if he’s not there already.
Nevertheless, Mayweather had beaten those men too. But the end results of his fights with them were not as brutal, as decisive, as immediate nor as final. It was never more so in Hatton’s case, where the world was reminded of a primal force that is Pacquiao and the devastating effect of such power when unleashed.
Still, Mayweather had beaten those men too. And he has the same – if not more – of the preternatural skill that Pacquiao has.
The world demanded a clash inside the ring to prove who the better man is. But Mayweather’s not wavering in his conviction, whatever that is.
Perhaps Floyd’s real concern is that the world would stop and watch, and celebrate the fall of the mighty. If Paquiao is able to do to him what was done to Hatton, with the whole world watching, will he be able to live with the memory forever?
Hatton barely could when his pride is but a fraction of that of Mayweather. Pacquiao is all about pain and Mayweather is not ready for that.
Mayweather has retired, un-retired, and has been dangling with retirement. Pacquiao could make that permanent for him.
“I’m not interested in rushing to do anything right now. I’m not really thinking about boxing right now… Just relaxing.”
Floyd has lost the edge, the swagger and has given up the claim to Boxing’s Greatest Ever.
And while the King was looking down, the Jester stole his thorny crown. The courtroom was adjourned…
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