Delusional Fan's Guide to Mayweather vs. Pacquiao
Unless you’ve taken shelter beneath a non-Wi-Fi-enabled rock, you’re probably aware that pound-for-pound elitists Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao went public on Friday with an agreement that’ll have them in a ring—yes, the same ring—at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on May 2.
The deal’s disclosure ended six years of heated wrangling that frequently saw the principals and their surrogates taking would-be jabs to social media, a phenomenon that spawned a pitched online battle between each man’s supporters—the sporting version of Twilight’s “Team Edward” and “Team Jacob.”
B/R boxing experts Kevin McRae (@McRaeBoxing) and Lyle Fitzsimmons (@Fitzbitz) donned the mask of one of the feuding factions and proceeded to exchange digital blows during an occasionally heated—but all in good fun—afternoon email exchange. Here are the results of their conversation.
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Manny Fan: Did you hear the news? It finally happened. Your boy. You know, "The Best Ever" has finally manned up and signed the deal. What happened. ... Did he lose a bet or something? There's no way he knew what he was reading (link NSFW).
Floyd Fan: Lose a bet. That's good. Floyd doesn't know how to lose, remember? Of course you do! Your guy has done it what? Five times. I'm just glad Sleepio woke up in time to sign the contract. By the way, did you see his signature? Did he do it in crayon?
Seriously, it looked like what my two-year-old puts on the walls.
Manny Fan: Nice. Let's see Floyd master English before you start taking shots at guys who are respected leaders in other countries. Can he even spell congressman?
And as for losses, yeah, that's what happens when you take real fights against real fighters. He was losing fights as a teenage pro when Floyd was still chasing bronze medals.
I notice you didn't mention the Castillo fight in your little "you've lost fights" rant. Everyone gets out of line when C.J. Ross calls the Canelo fight a draw, but those same people pretend the Castillo farce was a walkover.
Floyd Fan: We must have wildly different views on what makes you a respected leader.
Congressman Pacquiao. That has a nice ring to it. Here's your corner office, this is your secretary Marcy, and, by the way, whenever you get a chance pay that $75 million in back taxes you haven’t paid us.
Did I cross the line there? I'm sorry. Don't worry.
Money is a generous guy. He'll gladly help get the tax police off your back. He does well with charity cases. Do you want your 40 percent in cash? You know, wink, wink.
Oh, and you wanna talk controversy? One word: Marquez.
Manny Fan: Really...a guy who followed up a win over Cotto with a summer in jail for punching the mother of his kid is going to lob rocks about who deserves respect? Seriously, just because you've got a bunch of parrots trained to yell back "dedication" when you yell "hard work" doesn't mean you've attained much.
And yeah...Marquez got in his lucky shot and won his fight. He was stumbling around the ring and covered in his own blood at the time too, let's not forget. And as for what provided the "strength" behind that shot, I guess we'll give that a wink, wink too, eh?
If he's the guy the sycophants are saying is the reason why Floyd can beat Manny, keep in mind he's been dropped four times in the fights with Manny. And we all know about the other common opponents. Hatton at his natural weight. ... Boom! Oscar who was supposed to be too big. ... I quit!
If you think Maidana's pressure was tough to deal with, especially when he beat your man in the first fight, you ain't seen nothing yet.
Floyd Fan: Chill out there, buddy!
Need a nap? I can get Mr. Marquez over here, and he'll put you down.
Oh, but that would probably be luck too, right? Forget that he beat your guy in the first fight...and second...and third, but I guess all those judges went to the C.J. Ross School of Professional Prizefight Judging?
And I see what you did there. Let's look at this a different way.
Hatton. ... Boom! After Floyd exposed him as a soccer hooligan with trunks?
Oscar. ... I quit! After Floyd boxed circles around chicken De La Hoya?
Marcos Maidana? I guess it makes sense that you'd think he won. After all, he did miss 600 punches.
Manny Fan: Having lost to Castillo twice, to Maidana once and to Oscar once too, I guess you'd know all about bad decisions.
And while we're on the subject of hooligans, what should we call what should have been a disqualification loss to Judah? Any other guy has a corner man jump in the ring and it's an automatic loss, but when it's Mayweather, it's always the other guy's fault.
Fits in nicely with the sucker punches against Gatti and Ortiz.
But when it comes to actually fighting, when you have a guy in front of you who didn't train at the "Maidana, Canelo, Guerrero slow-footed caveman" school of boxing, what happens? Mosley almost dropped you at age 38. Floyd Sr. was there with Hatton. He knows what you're up against this time.
You might want to go ahead and get arrested again first.
Floyd Fan: Wait, wait, wait.
Lost?
I just checked BoxRec.com, and it says: Floyd Mayweather, 47 wins, zero losses.
How strange.
Weren't you talking about reading earlier? Are sure sure you wanna throw those rocks in your nice glass house?
And hey, Shane Mosley! Isn't that another guy Pacquiao fought after Mayweather beat him?
Also, for the record, my dude did his time. And Guerrero, Canelo and Maidana are better than Brandon Rios, you know the glorified heavy bag with a pair of trunks, and that kickboxing guy. What was his name again?
No, really, I don't know his name. How'd he do?
Manny Fan: Are Canelo, Guerrero or Maidana as good as Tim Bradley? Separately or together? Nope, I didn't think so either. And speaking of guys who someone fought after someone else beat them, how was Cotto after Manny stopped him for you?
You're welcome.
But one way or another, at some point you're going to have to talk about the actual fight. Your man is going to have a guy in front of him who not only has a better resume, but also quicker hands and more power.
When he meets a guy who isn't so happy to be there that he'll sleepwalk 12 rounds for the paycheck, it'll look a lot different. And Floyd won't like it.
Floyd Fan: Isn't Bradley that guy who beat Pacquiao?
And thanks for bringing up Cotto!
Sure, the catchweight king did pretty well pulverizing Miguel—I'm not above giving credit where it's due—but Floyd doesn't need any unfair advantages to win. 151 pounds? 142 pounds? What the heck is that nonsense?
Wanna impress me? Fight a guy at his weight. Floyd does it. Why can't Manny?
And a better resume?
I seem to remember hearing this somewhere before. Canelo. Bigger. Stronger. Faster. Younger.
How many rounds did he win in the real world? Not one.
Pacquiao's going to have a heck of a time when he throws a 14-punch combination and realizes that Floyd's been back in his locker room for a half hour. You can't hit what you can't find!
Manny Fan: OK...a little selective memory, right? Wasn't Canelo catchweighted to 152 just last year?
And when it comes to the "real world," I think the Mayweather groupies are the only ones left who didn't think the first Pac-Bradley decision was a joke. But that's all right; it got set straight in the rematch—you know, when everyone was saying Tim was a top-five P4P guy.
Has Floyd fought a top-five P4P guy anytime lately? No, I think that was part of his Showtime deal. Thirty-two million per fight...and no one with any chance to beat him.
That's why it's so surprising he actually took this fight. Did one of his illiterate hangers-on think it was Bobby Pacquiao instead? Matchmaking—like reading—is fundamental.
Floyd Fan: All I can see are the numbers, and it says here that Timothy Bradley won a split decision from Manny Pacquiao. Looked good to me. Maybe if you watch it without sound and without the "objective" commentary team swooning about all those Pac-Man shots that, you know, didn't land.
And Bradley couldn't even beat Diego Chaves. Some top-five P4P.
Look, let's talk brass tacks here. Manny wouldn’t be even money against Floyd Sr., and that guy is 62 years old!
Against Money? Well, at least he'll get a nice check—or will that be the IRS? I forgot how many people say he owes them money, sorry—before he gets beat up.
Manny Fan: Ahh...back to the nonsense again. Typical TMT. Hard work. Dedication. Easy work. It's easy to come up with stuff like that when you're more worried about All Access content than actually interesting fights.
You mentioned earlier that Maidana missed a bunch of punches. And he also roughed your guy up and totally got him off his game, so much so that Floyd thought he deserved a rematch...which is Mayweather code for "I know you beat me; give me another chance to make it look better."
Regardless, when those shots are coming from a guy far faster than ol' caveman Marcos, they won't miss. And when they land on Floyd's chin and arms and ribs round after round after round...he'll wish he'd gone ahead and taken the Khan fight after all. Too fast, too persistent, too powerful. Too good.
Floyd Fan: Too good?
This ain’t Chris Algieri in the middle of nowhere, friend.
This is Floyd “Money” Mayweather under the bright lights of Las Vegas!
You better buckle up because it’s going to be a bumpy ride. Floyd’s made a career out of making elite fighters look like fools. Diego Corrales (RIP), Jose Luis Castillo, De La Hoya, Hatton, Marquez, Mosley, Cotto, Canelo and on May 2 Manny Pacquiao.
Forty-seven have tried; none has succeeded.
Pacquiao is just No. 48 on Floyd’s path to being TBE.
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