Mayweather vs. Pacquiao: Legends, Legacies and an Empty Ring

Once again, the two biggest names in the sport of boxing have failed to come to terms, and no one seems surprised anymore.

Let’s not engage in fiction any longer. The fact is, if these two men really wanted to face each other, it would have happened by now.

Simply put, they would have found a way to make it happen.

Both sides can keep pointing fingers across the table, but bigger rivers have been crossed in the sport before—because the fighters wanted it.

Nay. They demanded it.

When Julio Cesar Chavez fought Pernell Whittaker, they overcame bigger hurdles than who gets the bigger portion of the money, or when the fight is made. One fighter was with HBO, the other Showtime, and they found a way to get everyone to agree so the fight could be made.

But back then, fighters seemed to be fighting for more than just money—they were fighting for bragging rights.

The only bragging rights Mayweather and Pacquiao seem to be interested in are based on their claims that it’s the other guy that is afraid, the other guy is being unreasonable.

It just doesn’t matter anymore.

Boxing needed this fight to be made two years ago, but negotiations broke down for reasons so well known and debated that they don’t need to be named again. Since that time, the closest Mayweather and Pacquiao have come to a confrontation is a phone call, and it doesn’t matter who dialed the number.

In the end, the biggest obstacle to this mega-fight seems to be Bob Arum. The man doesn’t like Mayweather, and it seems like he’d rather cut the nose off his own face rather than see Mayweather receive any money from what would be the biggest payday in boxing history.

But the nose he is cutting off belongs to his own fighter, Manny Pacquiao.

None of this matters because if the fighters wanted it bad enough, they could make it happen. Ultimately, their promoters and yes-men are there to serve them, not the other way around.

For Floyd Mayweather Jr., it seems as if he isn’t 100 percent invested in seeing this fight made because Pacquiao represents by far the biggest threat to his undefeated record and claim that he is the best boxer in history. If Mayweather loses, then the sole basis for his entire argument―the whole “I’m undefeated so I must be the best because the numbers don’t lie” nonsense―flies right out the window, and Mayweather can’t have that.

Mayweather isn’t afraid of Pacquiao, not in the least bit. But he is afraid of a loss. When a fighter is his own biggest fan, getting him to concede to anything in negotiations is going to be a battle beyond belief.

For Pacquiao, it looks as if he is nothing more than a puppet for his promoter, Bob Arum. For a man who is so ferocious in the ring, you’d think he’d be the one dictating terms to his promoter, and we know who calls the shots in the Mayweather camp.

But no, Pacquiao is simply content to keep on cutting rug on the dance floor, while Bob Arum conducts the orchestra, never thinking for himself.

Pacquiao needs to take a page from Mayweather’s book and start asserting himself when it comes to his career. For a man who decided to take up the mantle of public servant in his home country, his lack of passion and resolve makes one wonder just how much he’s going to be able to do for his people when the paperwork get’s deep and the lobbying goes long.

It’s no longer believable to see Pacquiao in front of a camera, sounding like he’s reading a script penned by Arum himself. He doesn’t sound earnest or compelling, he sounds like a salesman, and a bad one at that.

When these men finally retire, history will display their accomplishments, to be sure. It will remember their failure to meet in the ring at a time when boxing badly needed them to do so.

History will also show that for two men who want to be held in the company of great fighters from time's past, they just don’t quite measure up. This fight would have already been recorded in the books as a trilogy had it occurred in any significant era of boxing other than this one.

The fighters of those eras would have demanded it and found a way to make it happen.

But for this era, the fans are going to have to content themselves with watching the sport's two biggest fighters fight hard to keep from meeting in that fabled square circle.

No matter all their talking and finger pointing, the image that they’re leaving behind for us is worth a thousand words in any language—that of an empty ring.