By Miguel Alejandro Lopez: No matter how Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao try to get out of each other’s shadow, they will always find a way to throw flak on each other’s direction. Though these two are not fighting anytime soon, the boxing world has been set ablaze recently by a heated exchange of verbal jabs from the two rival camps.
During Mayweather’s press tour for the Canelo Alvarez clash, he described Pacquiao as a “has-been” whose career is over. Few days later the 8-division Filipino champ replied in a Filipino channel that he is not a has been and that Mayweather is all talk, no action. But what’s more surprising to some fans of the sport is how Mayweather responded to the Filipino challenge. The undefeated Floyd told Kevin Iole of Yahoo Sports that he will fight Manny if he (Pacquiao) would be willing to leave Top Rank and join Mayweather Promotions.
This is an outrageous statement because clearly, Mayweather is trying to milk Pacquiao of his popularity and fan base. Everybody knows that Mayweather Promotions is a fledgling promotions company. In fact, to continue their operations they constantly need to use the services of Golden Boy Promotions so that Floyd’s fighters can have decent matchups. Mayweather knows that if he has Pacquiao on his team, Mayweather Promotions will soar to new heights. So the statement he made was like “I don’t need Pacquiao, but I need Pacquiao” statement.
Mayweather is becoming aware of how boring he fights, at least that’s the perception of the viewing public. This is the reason why he was pressured to fight Alvarez, then include the Matthyse-Garcia fight on his undercard on September 14. This way, there will some excitement in the event because we all know how Mayweather fights, it’s always an anti-climax. He claims his fight is scientific and artistic, but if you want to watch art, you can go to a painting gallery instead. People watch boxing for excitement, and that’s what Pacquiao and Top Rank currently brings to the table (fights like Provodnikov-Bradley, Pacquiao-Marquez, Rios-Alvarado, and many more).
It’s painfully obvious that Mayweather is just trying to boost his struggling company and use Pacquiao to make more money. The thing is, Pacquiao is in the latest stages of his career and a move to another company is not in the to-do list. Furthermore, Mayweather knows that Pacquiao can knock him out. Mayweather struggled with Cotto, but Pacquiao beat up Cotto. The same people complaining against Pacquiao winning against Cotto at a catchweight are the same people who are silent today that Mayweather is fighting at a catchweight too.
The list goes on and on. Pacquiao has agreed to random blood testing. Pacquiao has agreed to a lesser fight purse. Now Mayweather has a new demand. It is starting to look like Mayweather is making excuses to not make the fight happen. The answer is, why?
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