It’s a fight that was six years in the making and seemed almost destined not to happen. Now, just hours away, it’s a mystery why it all took this long to put together. Boxing needed this fight to happen for the last decade and because it hasn’t, it’s seen its popularity steadily decline and even somewhat overtaken by MMA.
But people still love boxing. We can’t help it. It’s a visceral sport with rules, breaks, scoring and we get the difference between it and the grappling slugfests of MMA bouts. Boxing wasn’t dead, it was only sleeping.
And as soon as the Mayweather – Pacquiao fight was announced, it woke up loudly. And tonight, the Pay-Per-View revenue, glitz, glamour and sheer interest in this fight will put everything going on in MMA over the last 10 years to shame.
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How did we get here?
Frankly, I blame Riddick Bowe. Bowe was set to become the dominant heavyweight of his era and this was an era of real boxers like Evander Holyfield, Michael Moorer, Andrew Golota, a resurgent George Foreman, a pre-rape conviction Mike Tyson and Bowe’s arch nemesis Lennox Lewis.
The problem with the big potential fights in those days is something always managed to screw them up. Tyson – Holyfield was ruined when Tyson got knocked out by Buster Douglas in probably the most fun I’ve ever had watching a boxing match. After Holyfield beat Douglas for the title, we had another chance at Tyson – Holyfield, but Tyson’s rape conviction shut that down. By the time it finally happened, Mike Tyson was an out-of-shape joke punchline who was disqualified in their rematch for biting Holyfield’s ear.
Into that Mike Tyson-less void stepped Riddick Bowe and in 1992 he and Holyfield fought one of the best fights in history. Bowe won on a decision and the stage was set for a record-setting match with Lennox Lewis along with a lucrative rematch with Evander Holyfield. Bowe did neither. Instead, refusing to fight Lewis he publicly tossed his WBC Heavyweight title belt in the trash at a press conference.
Instead of a rematch with Holyfield, Bowe decided to fight a washed up Michael Dokes who had won one fight over a legitimate opponent (Jose Ribalta in 1992) in the previous five years and even that was a split decision. Dokes didn’t even make it out of the first round. Bowe dodged Lewis and Holyfield again, fighting Jesse Ferguson, who wasn’t even a full-time boxer and once got disqualified in a fight with Mike Tyson for hugging him too much. Bowe knocked him out in round two.
Needless to say, Bowe wasn’t building much of a legacy fighting Rocky movie extras so he finally decided to give Evander Holyfield a rematch and after deciding to do most of his training at Burger King, showed up to the match fat and promptly lost.
On the other side of the ocean Lennox Lewis appeared to be doing all he could hold up his end of the bargain and force Bowe into a megabout. Lewis was handed the WBC title that Bowe had tossed and defended it against the criminally underrated Tony Tucker, who had only lost one fight in his career at that point, a decision to Mike Tyson back in 1987, and had never even been knocked down in the ring. Lewis put him on his ass in the third round, winning by decision. Lewis knocked out Frank Bruno and Phil Jackson in two legitimate title defenses and looked like he would become the dominant heavyweight that Riddick Bowe refused to be.
Then he got knocked out by professional crackhead Oliver McCall in the second round and that, as they say, was that.
We never got the guy we wanted. Holyfield either had a heart attack after losing to Michael Moorer or had a weird reaction to the illegal HGH he was rumored (over and over again) to be taking at the time, so he was out of boxing for two years. Moorer blew his only real chance to step to the forefront by getting knocked out by George Foreman, who wasn’t even ranked by any boxing governing body at the time.
With the titles un-unified, Lewis and Moorer would both pick up belts again, but nobody cared. Holyfield claimed his heart was miraculously healed by faith-healer Benny Hinn came back and fought everybody on planet earth until no state or country would sanction his fights. Tyson got out of prison and spent the final few years of his boxing career as everybody else’s punching bag and Andrew Golota spent three straight years hitting everyone in the balls.
By the time that Wladimir and Vitali Klitschko finally won all of the titles, effectively unifying them again no one really cared. Nobody wants to root for Ivan Drago, especially if there are two of him.
Rise of the middleweights
With the heavyweights sliding out of prominence it was time for the middleweights to take the forefront. They hadn’t even shared the spotlight with the heavyweights since the days of Sugar Ray Leonard, Tommy Hearns and Marvin Hagler, but guys like Mayweather, Pacquiao, Oscar De la Hoya and Shane Mosely seemed to all burst onto the scene all at once. Of that group, Mayweather and Pacquiao were a cut above and they both knew it. That’s why Mayweather offered Pacquiao a fight in 2010 with a 50-50 split, but Pacquiao wouldn’t sign the contract because he didn’t want to submit to Olympic-style drug testing in 2009. In 2012 it was drug testing and money, with Mayweather offering $40 million, but no split.
Then, seemingly out of the blue last December there appeared to be hope when Mayweather began openly calling for the fight once again. By February, they had a deal and the fight was on with Mayweather and Pacquiao getting a 60-40 split respectively with USADA drug testing before and after the fight. Pay-per-view records are already expected to be shattered into pieces, with predictions that it will be the first fight ever to generate $300 million.
Just 15 years into the new millennium and we get our “Fight of the Century,” the biggest boxing event since 1975’s Thrilla in Manilla, the third and final time Muhammed Ali would fight Joe Frazier, which was so important you probably can’t turn your television on without stumbling onto a documentary about it right now.
Filipino Power Co. Suggests Unplugging Fridges to Save Power for Mayweather-Pacquiao Fight http://t.co/3MILwAQA2Z
— Slate (@Slate) May 2, 2015
So what’s going to happen?
Frankly, I’m way too excited to even care. Ali-Frazier III happened when I was one and I’ve only seen films and documentaries on it and I’ve spent a lifetime being frustrated at near-miss epic fights that fell through. Mayweather comes in 47-0 with 26 knockouts. He’s got nearly two inches height on Pacquiao and has a good five inches in reach and with Mayweather’s speed, that will matter a lot. Pacquiao has more power and can take a punch. I don’t think Mayweather can knock him out. I do think that Pacquaio can put Mayweather flat on his back if he gets in close.
My prediction: Mayweather in a decision.
