By John-Paul Wolfe
In the wake of Juan Manuel Marquez’s stunning knockout victory over Manny Pacquiao, the boxing world collectively lost hope and interest in what would be the richest fight in boxing history, Floyd Mayweather vs Manny Pacquiao. In order for the fight of the decade to regain its intrigue, Floyd will have to avoid a loss in the interim and Manny must impressively avenge his most recent losses to Marquez and Bradley. This is much easier said than done. But why can’t boxing just make Mayweather vs Pacquaio now? Because in boxing no one wants to let a fighter coming off a loss get the biggest fight in the division. In boxing you are only as good as your last performance.
Now, let’s take a look at boxing’s counterpart in the combat sport world, MMA and more specifically the UFC organization. The UFC has seven weight classes. In three of these weight classes challengers coming off a loss, or in one case two consecutive losses, are gearing up to challenge for the title. The president of the UFC, Dana White, has made it clear that his priority is making the match ups that the fans want to see. If that means giving fighters title shots after a loss, so be it. And it appears to working as we see the UFC selling out arenas everywhere they go while pulling in big PPV money. Oh, and by the way they’re also putting meaningful, fan friendly cards on free network television.
So why can’t boxing fans accept the fact that the fight they STILL want to see is Pacquiao and Floyd? Manny got robbed against Bradley and got caught with a huge shot against Marquez after looking good leading up to that point. Boxing needs to adopt some of the policies from Dana white. Make the biggest fights possible and make them now, because let’s be honest, the Mayweather vs Pacquaio fight should have already happened. The longer it takes to happen the more boxing suffers as fans move away towards a sport that appeals to their interest’s and gives them the best fights while they are still relevant.
