Floyd Mayweather's Risks and Rewards in Potential Superfight vs. Manny Pacquiao
It’s been the biggest fight in boxing for what seems like forever now. They should have fought in 2009. They should have fought in 2010. Every year has been the same thing: Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao should have faced each other by now.
Why haven’t they?
It’s 2014 now, and welterweights Mayweather and Pacquiao are still the biggest superstars in the sport. They are two of the best and most popular fighters in boxing history. They are ranked No. 1 and No. 2 on Bleacher Report’s Top 25 Pound-for-Pound List, and in the top three or four of every other legitimate pound-for-pound ranking system in the sport.
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According to the Transnational Rankings, Mayweather is ranked No. 1 in the world at welterweight. Pacquiao is ranked No. 2. Other rankings systems tell similar stories. Mayweather holds the WBC and WBA welterweight titles as well as the Transnational, Ring Magazine, WBC and WBA junior middleweight championships. Pacquiao is the WBO welterweight titleholder.
It’s time these two finally give the public what they want to see. But will Mayweather and Pacquiao agree to terms? The answer to that question lies within the perceived risks and rewards of each man taking the fight.
Here is what Mayweather should be considering.
Risks
Mayweather is the best risk manager in the sport of boxing, both in and out of the ring. Inside of it, he knows when to throw punches and when to duck out of the way. He does little things here and there to grab rounds, and he never takes a chance he doesn’t absolutely have to take, especially if he already has a fight in the bag.
As an example, go back and watch Round 12 of his victory over Miguel Cotto back in 2012. Mayweather hurt Cotto badly in the final round, but he didn’t go for the knockout and stayed away from him afterward because he felt the victory was already secured.
Outside of the ring, Mayweather is equally adept at managing risk. One narrative in boxing circles is that Mayweather has ducked his best competition, especially at welterweight and above. Among other things, persons who subscribe to this way of thinking point to Mayweather never facing Antonio Margarito, waiting until Cotto looked beatable to face him and avoiding a confrontation with Pacquiao altogether.
But that isn’t quite what Mayweather does. Mayweather has fought numerous dangerous fights against world champions and future Hall of Famers. Instead, what Mayweather does is weigh the risk of a bout against the potential reward. After all, why face someone other than the Robert Guerreros and Marcos Maidanas of the world when you can make an equally absurd amount of money by not doing so and be lauded by your contemporaries as one of the best fighters ever anyway?
Mayweather already knows the risks associated with fighting Pacquiao. He’s likely stewed on them for years now. Pacquiao has the hand-speed to give Mayweather problems. His punch sequences are aggressive and erratic, something a technician like Mayweather would probably have trouble with early on in the fight but be able to adjust to after. He hits with serious and devastating power in both hands, and he’s a tricky southpaw who has a tendency to come up big in his biggest fights.
In short, Pacquiao is and has always been the most serious threat to Mayweather’s undefeated record, at least at 154 pounds and below. Against Pacquiao, Mayweather’s claim to being “TBE” (the best ever) wouldn’t just be on the line against “Pacman.” No, against Pacquiao, Mayweather’s claim to being the best fighter of his generation would be up for grabs, a distinction Mayweather seems desperate to keep.
Rewards
Anyone who tells you Mayweather doesn’t have a brilliant mind is an imbecile. Mayweather has built a career in an increasingly niche sport to being the most well-paid sports figure in the world today as well as the most popular boxer on the planet. That kind of thing doesn’t happen by accident. Mayweather knows what he’s doing.
The rewards for Mayweather’s efforts have been substantial. As Bleacher Report’s Jonathan Snowden put it, Mayweather is the undisputed king of boxing at the moment, something very few fighters have ever been able to claim. He’s undeniably great at what he does and well appreciated by the culture for doing it. For a practitioner of the sweet science, it doesn’t get any better than that.
As with the risks associated with fighting Pacquiao, Mayweather has most certainly already done his homework on the potential rewards for taking the fight. “Money” Mayweather would be ecstatic about the bottom-line figure of the fight. A bout against Pacquiao would likely break all pay-per-view and live-gate records known to man. If Mayweather earned $41.5 million for facing Canelo Alvarez last year, is it absurd to believe he could make well over $50 or $60 million for facing Pacquiao?
More importantly, Mayweather’s legacy will never be what it could be without having faced Pacquiao. Lyle Fitzsimmons alluded to the idea that Mayweather might be finally realizing that now. How could he miss it? No matter what he does or how much money he makes, fans, media and boxing historians will always ask one question first: Why didn’t he fight Pacquiao?
Mayweather’s rewards for facing Pacquiao are clear: More money than he’s ever made in one fight and more respect than he could ever gain by fighting anyone else.
Will He or Won’t He?
It takes two camps to put a fight together, but you cannot subscribe to the idea that Mayweather is the top dog in boxing without also believing he could make a Pacquiao fight happen if he sincerely wanted to do it. The question remains, then: Will Mayweather do everything he can to take the most meaningful fight of his life?
Yahoo! Sports’ Kevin Iole sure doesn’t think so. Iole says the Mayweather-Pacquiao superfight will never happen, and that “[t]he failure to make [it] is a blight on the sport and will forever tarnish the reputation of all those involved.”
But let’s be optimists here, shall we? Mayweather has too many reasons to let the most important bout of his career slip away into night. After all, Mayweather is smart guy. After considering the risks and rewards of facing Pacquiao, it can only lead him to one conclusion: Mayweather-Pacquiao in 2015 or bust.
Hey, it’s better late than never.
Kelsey McCarson is a member of the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board. Follow him @KelseyMcCarson.
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