By Steve Kim
When you ask veteran boxing sage Larry Merchant this question - "Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao is the biggest fight since...." - it takes a awhile for him to answer.
"Mayweather-[Oscar] De La Hoya maybe in terms of interest," Merchant replies after more than just a few seconds.
Some have said this is the biggest fight since the legendary match-up between Sugar Ray Leonard and Thomas Hearns but Merchant brushes off those comparisons.
"Because they were in their primes," he points out.
And he's correct. While Mayweather is 38 and Pacquiao 36, when Leonard and Hearns met up in September of 1981 - Leonard was 25 and Hearns a month shy of 23.
"That fight," recalled Merchant. "As Angelo Dundee put it - 'cooked for awhile' it didn't happen when everyone wanted."
Originally, there was talk of the two welterweight titans meeting a few years earlier but according to Merchant - "[Dundee] thought it was a little bit too soon. But it was five years after the Olympics of '76, they were coming into their primes, they were both stars. That sort of thing."
To Merchant, Mayweather-Pacquiao is more like the 2002 bout between Lennox Lewis and Mike Tyson.
He reasoned - "because of how long it took to make the fight and because in a way Mayweather is like the heavyweight champion in America. He's the guy who has filled the void of real heavyweights as a box-office attraction. So in that sense, it's fair to compare them.
"There were some other highly anticipated fights but none that maybe broke through the fight fan barrier like this one."
Steve Kim is the news editor for BoxingScene.com.
