What’s Best for Boxing May be Bad for Pacquiao

Tungod, Inabanga, Bohol – Every boxing fan craves for the best matchups. We all want the world’s finest fighters to challenge each other for domination and earn the distinction of being the top pugilist of this era. Unfortunately though, face-offs more often than not are neither driven by what the fans yearn for, nor by the combatants’ desire to eliminate all possible challenges that they ought to hurdle on their way to the throne of supremacy. Rather, matchups, whether we like it or not, are almost always business-driven.

It is for this reason that this writer has come up with the best case scenario for the sport of boxing, where almost all the major players most probably will be pleased about. Unfortunately, though, for the sport’s top dog Manny “Pacman” Pacquiao(49-3-2, 37 KOs), all this will come at his expense come November 14th. A lucid explanation for this rather vague scenario (vague especially for Pacfans) is provided for on the latter part of this piece.

A poll recently run by a boxing website indicated that boxing fans want Sugar Shane Mosley (46-5-0, 39 KOs) to be the next opponent of undefeated and self-proclaimed best boxer “Pretty Boy” Floyd Mayweather, Jr. (40-0-0, 25 KOs). This is probably due to the nagging criticisms put on Mayweather’s propensity to go after opponents who are either relatively too small, too slow, or too mediocre for him. A win over Mosley will almost certainly considerably reduce, if not totally eliminate, all the criticisms Floyd has been receiving all these years. However, this encounter may never happen, as Floyd will most likely take on the much smaller Pacquiao, who, in my opinion, will beat Cotto next month. Mosley is viewed by Mayweather’s camp as a legitimate threat to their ward’s unbeaten status at this point in time, and thus, should be avoided.

Now going back to the best case scenario mentioned earlier, in order for the much ballyhooed Mayweather-Mosley encounter to be possible, Pacquiao should lose to Cotto this November. Please take note that I say this while I’m knocking on wood because I definitely would not want to see the world’s best fighter and the sport’s most valuable commodity in Pacquiao lose. Let’s just try to pretend that this will happen for argument’s sake, just for now.

Cotto has earlier suggested his willingness to give Pacquiao a rematch in the event that the latter loses. If the fight turns out to be very competitive and action-packed, as we all expect it would, we might be looking at yet another trilogy involving Pacquiao. Having both fighters under the same promotional umbrella, Top Rank Incorporated’s chief honcho Bob Arum would most certainly want to stage the rematch instead of a possible hookup with Mayweather, with whom Arum has been at odds, not to mention the divided profit he would generate if Golden Boy Promotions would co-promote it. When this happens, GBP will be left with no other choice, but to stage their own super fight – Mayweather vs Mosley! We all want this fight sooner than later. Mosley is not getting any younger and this might very well be the only chance we will ever see Mayweather fairly challenged, size-wise, speed-wise and skill-wise.

One might ask, “Does Pacquiao really have to lose to Cotto this November?” Of course not! A draw is also possible, but would undoubtedly make things much less exciting. Draw verdicts are killing the sport in more ways than one. Nevertheless, the fact remains that a Pacquiao victory would almost certainly mean that a rematch is far from happening. If he wins, Pacquiao will inevitably face-off with Mayweather and the only viable option for Mosley and Cotto is to do a rematch of their 2007 encounter. Pacquiao-Mayweather will definitely be a fight for the ages. On the other hand, Mosley-Cotto would be much less appealing. Well, we can very well consider this as boxing’s 2nd best case scenario.

All these things, once again, boils down to Mayweather’s knack for choosing overmatched opponents. It is my hope, nonetheless, (and I may stand alone on this one) that Floyd will get over his shane-o-phobia, take on Mosley’s challenge and silence all his critics (including me) once and for all so that the great Pacman won’t have to lose just to set the stage for his heavily demanded encounter with Sugar Shane.

Hereunder is a link to a related topic…

http://sportales.com/wrestling/mayweather-untried-unproven-and-untested-at-welterweight/

Comments are highly appreciated. You can email them to reylanloberternos@yahoo.com.ph