Floyd Mayweather, Manny Pacquiao's Run-In Doesn't Make a Superfight More Likely

It reads as much like a tween-age text chat as a big-time sports story.

“OMG! Did U c hu Floyd wz w lst nyt?”

“yS. cn U BlEv it?”

“R dey goin 2 h%k up?”

“Dey lookd rly friendly.”

Yes, in case you’d managed to avoid the wave of armchair relationship analysis for the last 24 hours, everyone’s favorite star-crossed boxing couple—Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao—finally found themselves in the same room on Tuesday night. Though it wasn’t quite as transcendent as it sounds.

Rather than on a stage to announce a signed contract or—gasp!—actually in a ring wearing gloves, trunks and shoes, the two men laid eyes on each other for the first time at a Miami Heat game.

Then, according to the Los Angeles Times’ Lance Pugmire, they got together at Pacquiao’s hotel room to discuss where things stand.

They’ve been engaged in an awkward dance toward, around and away from each other for the better part of the half-decade that’s now elapsed since the Filipino became a full-time welterweight and beat Miguel Cotto to win the WBO’s 147-pound title. Mayweather had been the WBC’s champion in the division prior to Pacquiao’s coronation, then re-captured the belt in 2011 that he still holds today.

And because the waltz has been defined mostly by intermediary jabbering and online taunting, the boxing-riveted universe has a hair-trigger, hyperbolic reaction whenever something non-juvenile occurs.

It’s happening again. But no, this isn’t the first time.

Upon defeating Marcos Maidana again last September, Mayweather set keyboards ablaze by telling Showtime’s Jim Gray: “If the Manny Pacquiao fight presents itself, let’s make it happen,” in the post-fight interview. Though, when asked about it in a follow-up press conference, he quickly clammed up.

John Locher/Associated Press

The “Itz finalE hEr” tittering struck again when Yahoo Sports’ Kevin Iole claimed double-secret meetings between the camps were going so well that an Internet-breaking announcement within a week seemed possible.

Nevertheless, it’s been 15 days, and Kim Kardashian’s buttocks remain the undisputed champion.

This time around, it’s an intro at a ballgame that’s being labeled as fight-game detente.

But aside from a notion it was the sort of orchestrated coincidence that’s kept Vince McMahon in business for decades, the supposition that a chance South Beach encounter between two guys with a long-standing predilection for basketball means anything seems a reach of Yao Ming proportions.

And even though Pacquiao sidekick Michael Koncz told Pugmire his man considered it “God’s will” that a fellow multi-millionaire was opposite him in courtside seats at the NBA’s most tropical venue, what’s far more likely is that getting within sweat distance of Dwyane Wade is par for the Tuesday course for one rich guy who’s got a place in Miami and another who couldn’t get a plane out.

Meeting Adam Levine wouldn’t have meant a gig on The Voice.

Meeting Floyd Mayweather Jr. doesn’t mean they’re going to fight.

Regardless of the happenstance, though, what exactly did anyone figure Mayweather—even if he has no interest in ever sharing a ring with the guy—would actually have done upon encountering him?

Throw a jab? Give him flowers? Hide behind his bodyguards? Feign unconsciousness?

No, no, no and no. Instead, he did precisely what anyone in his spot would have—give a handshake, make some small talk, exchange phone numbers and circle-back for a drink—then smile knowingly the next morning as the insiders stampede to be first with the proof that Valhalla had arrived.

So before the interpersonal dissections get even further out of hand, let’s be clear. The fight will happen if/when Mayweather wants it to happen. Running into Pacquiao at a basketball game isn’t going to make him do something he hadn’t already long decided on doing. He does his own thing. He doesn’t care what you say. And he isn’t going to let a silly thing like public opinion make up his mind for him.

In other words...much ado about nothing.

Or, if you prefer: “Don’t BlEv it untl U c it.”