By Cliff Rold

Last Saturday night, as he went down to defeat for the third consecutive time, the once great Mixed Martial Arts battler Fedor Emelianenko was left right where so many of his fans, and MMA fans in general, were.

Earlier this year, this scribe penned a column after the last Fedor loss reminding that big fightsa are best served when hot.  The gist was simple: the inability of Team Fedor and the UFC to do business, when Emelianenko-Brock Lesnar looked like it could clear Fort Knox, was a warning for boxing. 

The warning was most applicable, at the time, to the failure to have made Wladimir Klitschko-David Haye and Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao.  The assumption beneath such thinking is that the failure to make the massive fights the fans truly want can do grave harm to the sport.

Watching Fedor felled for the third time in a row, another thought came to mind.

What if it’s all b.s.?

What if no real harm is done at all?

Emelianenko-Henderson happened in front of a rabid, paying crowd and certainly many more were watching at home on Showtime.  In the lead to Haye-Klitschko, which ultimately did happen (even if most have already forgotten or at least want to), both fighters sold out arenas against men other than each other.

Mayweather and Pacquiao? 

Yeah, without fighting each other, the sport has just been a rudderless mess.  I mean, all they do is sell around a million pay-per-views against whoever they fight every time out, leaving people to bitch and moan that they haven’t fought yet and then shell out for the next chapter in the saga. 

The biggest myth in sport is that the best don’t fight each other in boxing.  It’s utter nonsense.  The best fight each other pretty often.  Next weekend, the Showtime Bantamweight tournament will conclude.  It has featured four of the best in the world in one of the game’s best current divisions.

They fought each other.

The Super Six Super Middleweight tournament has provided fights featuring nine of the best at 168 lbs.  Light Heavyweight has a sort of round robin going on.  Jr. Welterweight is so deep that a round robin is taking up a healthy portion of a fistic generation.

No, it’s just not true, even if this corner sometimes falls victim to the complaint as well.  The best do fight each other and with plenty to spare.  It’s just been that the declared very best fight of all has been slow to develop. 

What does that have to with Fedor losing last weekend?  It’s that his latest loss, viewed in parallel to the business of the sweet science, proves that the only thing really hurt by the failure to make a single huge fight is the moment that fight belongs to.

And the history of the fighters.

Emelianenko, had he bested Lesnar before the former WWE and NCAA champion lost to Cain Velasquez, would have collected a boatload of cash.  He might have captured the mainstream U.S. mainstream victory he lacked to make praise for him as potentially the best ever in his field of fighting universal.

The thing about the money is that he’s still making that and fans are still tuning in.  They didn’t get his fight with Lesnar when it mattered most and have moved on.  If Pacquiao or Mayweather suffer a bad loss before they can face each other, if they never face off at all, they won’t be hurting at the bank.

They will merely have lost a chance to expand their legacy.  Fans will cry foul, scream cacophony, and then tune in to see the next big thing, generate buzz for the next fight that ‘must’ happen. 

Without Pacquiao-Mayweather, boxing will have missed out on a firestorm of mainstream attention, but only until someone new comes along with the chance to spark the next flame.

Cynical minds might say, “there is no one to replace those two stars.”

They were just as wrong when they said Oscar De La Hoya was boxing’s last big star in the U.S.

The health of boxing depends on a depth of good fighters, a volume of quality action, and repeat customers.  The last of these springs from the first two.  A big star can get them in the door.  The rest of the game has to keep them there. 

MMA is strong because it provides those three ingredients even if it misses a big fight or two.  Boxing is seeing an increase in ratings on HBO and steady audience in other venues in large part because fights like Amir Khan-Marcos Maidana, Brandon Rios-Miguel Acosta, Andre Berto-Victor Ortiz, and Juan Manuel Lopez-Orlando Salido are being made beneath the stars.

The lesson of Fedor’s losing streak?  Maybe it is that making good fights with everyone else proves the big one that got away isn’t so big after all.

Weekly Ledger

But wait, there’s more…

Cliff’s Notes… So Pongsaklek Wonjongkam-Edgar Sosa is signed?  Really?  The WBC didn’t just declare Wonjongkam “Champion in Passport,” and let Sosa fight some shot years ago Strawweight champ for extra sanctioning fees?  Will wonders never cease?  All ‘kidding’ aside, this is one heck of a Flyweight scrap…Another possible heck of a scrap springs from where the kidding began.  Erik Morales-Jorge Barrios for a cheap strap at 140 sucked.  The strap is still worthless while Timothy Bradley is “Champion in Recess” (does he get some juice and orange wedges for recess) but Morales vs. Lucas Matthysse is just ill.  Who fights Maidana and then come right back with Matthysse?  Erik Morales makes Chuck Norris look like one of the Sex in the City chicks…Ricky Burns only thinks he’s ready for Adrien Broner…Anselmo Moreno is wasting a lot of time and, in an athlete, time and talent can be the same.  It’s not easy to get noticed being a defensive boxer from South America but possibly fighting Eric Morel when Nonito Donaire is saying your name probably doesn’t cut it.     

Cliff Rold is a member of the Ring Magazine Ratings Advisory Panel, the Yahoo Pound for Pound voting panel, and the Boxing Writers Association of America.  He can be reached at roldboxing@hotmail.com