Floyd Mayweather Would Confirm His Shortcomings by Choosing Cotto over Pacquiao

If Floyd Mayweather chooses a rematch against Miguel Cotto over a long-awaited showdown with Manny Pacquiao, he will only confirm what about half of the boxing world already believes about him.

Mayweather will prove once and for all that he cares more about protecting his ego and undefeated record than he does about competing in compelling and historically important prizefights, and at the end of his career, that’s all anyone will probably care about.

Sadly, according to ESPN.com’s Dan Rafael, Mayweather-Cotto 2 appears to be on its way:

If you’re keeping tabs of the Mayweather-Pacquiao 2015 soap opera at home, this bit of news comes immediately after negotiations between Cotto and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez fell apart (per Rafael) for a proposed middleweight bout in May or June.

It also follows the large, full-scale public assault Pacquiao has put on Mayweather since Pac-Man's six-knockdown title defense over Chris Algieri in November 2014. Turn on the television today sometime, and you’ll probably see Pacquiao telling someone he wants to fight Mayweather.

Kin Cheung/Associated Press

Last week, Top Rank’s Bob Arum told Yahoo’s Tim Dahlberg that Pacquiao had agreed to all of Mayweather’s terms for the proposed superfight.

“We're waiting for Mayweather to sign a document saying, 'Yeah,'” Arum told Dahlberg.

This was also confirmed by Top Rank's Carl Moretti to Rafael.

"Top Rank and Manny have agreed to the terms on our side. I don't know about the other side," Moretti told Rafael.

On Tuesday, Pacquiao said via Twitter that he believes he would be the first fighter to defeat Mayweather, something his most ardent supporters have assumed since the Filipino moved up to welterweight in 2008 and dominated Oscar De La Hoya in an eight-round stoppage:

Moreover, Pacquiao told ESPN The Magazine’s Sam Alipour in a video interview that he believes Mayweather hasn’t yet fought him for one simple reason: He’s scared to lose.

But Mayweather has trained his fans to think of his career as a board game of Monopoly rather than a fighting campaign. In his mind, they should laud the vastness of his bank account and how smartly he’s gamed the system rather than worry about trivial matters like fighting the best opponents and staking a real claim at historic greatness.

Mayweather's self-proclaimed moniker is “TBE” (or The Best Ever). Maybe we’ve been misinterpreting exactly what that means.

Because Mayweather surely isn’t the best fighter ever. He is neither fighting's most accomplished, nor most talented. He suffers in comparison to the likes of Sugar Ray Robinson, Henry Armstrong and Roberto Duran on both counts.

Anonymous/Associated Press

He isn’t even Sugar Ray Leonard, Thomas Hearns or Marvin Hagler. Very few historians would put those fine pugilists in the same class as the aforementioned, and they’ll be even less likely to place Mayweather among their ranks, too.

Because while Leonard, Hearns and Hagler didn’t quite accomplish enough to be considered one of the absolute greatest fighters ever, all of them at least faced each other when the boxing world clamored for it.

But maybe Mayweather is the best ever at other things.

He could be the best ever at swindling fight fans out of their hard-earned money. After all, Mayweather made millions last year fighting a slow-handed slugger named Marcos Maidana twice, one who had already suffered losses at junior welterweight to Andriy Kotelnik, Devon Alexander and Amir Khan.

John Locher/Associated Press

Or maybe he’s the best ever at avoiding his most obvious competition. Mayweather is sure adept at managing to avoid fighting Pacquiao, and he’s done it for about six years now.

Is it a trend?

He skipped then-champion Kostya Tszyu in his mid-2000s campaign at junior welterweight, and there’s no indication he ever seriously considered fighting at middleweight before a fighter he’d already beaten in Cotto did the dirty work for him of dethroning an aging and injured Sergio Martinez.

Both Mayweather and Pacquiao have already faced Cotto anyway. Mayweather decisioned him in 2012. Pacquiao knocked him out in 2009. Neither fight was really that close.

But now with rumors swirling of boxing fans finally getting the fight they’ve wanted to see, reports that HBO and Showtime have had secret meetings to discuss how they could jointly air the fight, Pacquiao saying he’s signed off on all of Mayweather’s demands, including drug testing—with all of those things happening, Mayweather looks in the direction of Cotto?

There are two sides to every story, of course, and Mayweather has his.

In a recent interview with Shade 45 Radio (h/t Boxing Scene’s Edward Chaykovsky), Mayweather confirmed he was in fact still negotiating a fight with Pacquiao and that he’s “trying to make the fight happen.”

But here are the troubling quotes from the very same interview, the ones that indicate Mayweather is still playing his Monopoly game instead of being a fighter:

"

Once again, we have to look at his pay-per-view numbers. His last fight didn't even do 300,000 homes. Figures make sense. He did get knocked out not too long ago. No matter what you say, Floyd Mayweather still winning. When they take shots at Floyd Mayweather, he still winning and making hundreds of millions.

"

Yes, Mayweather’s still winning and making millions. Maybe he’s even the best ever at the latter thing.

But he’s never faced Pacquiao, and in the end that might be all history really has to say about him.

Oh, and I guess he was rich, too.  

Follow @KelseyMcCarson