Monday, November 30, 2009

Do other fights need to happen before Mayweather vs. Pacquiao?

Fans are clamoring for Mayweather vs. Pacquiao to be announced and confirmed, but seemingly neither fighter is in a position to make the fight happen any time soon. This isn't to say that the fight wont happen at all, but it might be in the later part of 2010 rather than the Spring.

According to numerous rumors Mayweather is looking to fight again before the mega fight goes down. Perhaps out of wanting to stay fresh and perhaps simply to make a few extra million in the meantime.

The original date for Mayweather vs. Pacquiao was rumored to be May, although this date is now in doubt due to the fact that the Filipino elections being held on May 10th. It seems likely that Pacquiao, if he hopes to get elected and further his political aspirations, will need at least a few weeks around this time free to concentrate on campaigning rather than training. Of course training for the biggest fight of his career while being distracted by other things is a bad idea for any boxer, let alone one about to face someone as tricky as Floyd Mayweather.

The potential obstacles to the fight being made soon


(AP Photo)Manny's political timetable will seemingly put the fight off by at least a couple of months. Depending on whether he is elected or not, this could actually be either a lot longer or shorter. At the very least Pacquiao will need some time for campaigning without training every day, which obviously isn't possible if he has a fight scheduled. By the looks of things, the soonest Pacquiao could fight next would be late summer unless he decides to fight before the election, although this is doubtful.



(AP Photo)Floyd Mayweather is rumored to have another fight in the works for January. The front runners for his as yet to be named opponent include Ricky Hatton, Matthew Hatton and Shane Mosley, although nothing has been confirmed yet. There are also two other interested parties to the outcome of this one, Juan Manual Marquez and Amir Khan, who are both looking for fights with one of the involved parties. The upside of this would be that Mosley at least would probably give Mayweather a title to take to the fight with Pacquiao, unifying the major Welterweight titles.

Taking another fight before Manny would let Mayweather stay fresh and keep him from being too ring rusty. Although he hasn't shown it in the past, what with the elections this will probably be a long lay off for Pacquiao, which could well affect him come fight time. There are other options for Pacquiao at the same time however, Yuri Foreman has been mentioned as a possible opponent for Manny to knock over and get yet another title in a new weight class. Foreman is seen as the weakest of the Super welterweight champions though, and Manny would probably drop back down after beating him.

Given that Mayweather is seemingly planning to take a different fight before the Pacquiao fight in secret, many people have asserted that he is only talking to Top Rank to keep his name in the media while he sets up another fight and doesn't have any intention of taking on Manny. While I don't think this is necessarily true given that he would still have a good chance of winning not to mention the money he could make, this video is an interesting look at the nature of Boxing in general. It focuses on Mayweather, but in all likelihood could have been made for any fighter.

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