By Bong Paredes: After soundly beating one of the toughest welterweights of this era in Miguel Cotto, Manny Pacquiao not only cemented his claim as the pound for pound king he’s now also widely considered as one of the top 20 boxers (top 10 or 15 depending on who you ask) of all time. He also set the stage for perhaps the biggest grossing event in prizefighting history should he and Floyd Mayweather Jr. push through with their proposed mega fight sometime in May..
Now we all know that while this is the only fight that makes sense for both fighters, there’s a strong possibility that negotiations (mainly about the purse split between the two fighters) will not be an easy task as both Manny (his camp at least) and Floyd feel that they should have the bigger piece of the pie. Majority of the boxing populace felt that if negotiations fall through it will be was because Floyd would price himself out of the fight and tell the world how he doesn’t need to fight Manny.
Well, it seems a lot of people were wrong. If what I read in the papers (here in the Philippines) are true, Floyd’s camp has already agreed in principle to face Manny in May and that Pac is in no rush to get back in the ring as he wants another crack at a seat at the House of Representatives.
Manny Pacquiao is a kind hearted and generous man and he loves the Philippines and everyone in it and that is the main reason why he wants to run for office, to once again defy the odds and be the voice of the masses and to help as many as he can.
There’s only one problem with that, everyone loves him for doing what he does best and that is boxing. I’m not saying he’s not going to do well as a Congressman, what I’m saying is that this is the fight that you don’t put off. This is the fight of all fights. It’s not like some promoter is pitting a couple of good fighters and building it up as something bigger than what it’s supposed to be (like Mayweather vs. Dela Hoya). This is a fight between the two best boxers of this era who’s both in the prime of their careers and in one weight class. It doesn’t get any better than this.
Both fighters owe this to the boxing world and surprisingly, Mayweather already did his part so it’s now up to Manny step up and sign on the dotted line. So once again Manny, if you are reading this please keep in mind that while I admire you for everything that you want to do for our country should you win in the coming elections, it will be a big letdown for the boxing community if you put this fight off.
(Bong Paredes can be reached at bgparedes@gmail.com and http://theprodigy7.wordpress.com. You can also follow him on Twitter at Twitter.com/bongparedes)