By Cliff Rold
No matter one’s opinion of the Manny Pacquiao/Floyd Mayweather blood testing rift, one thing was abundantly clear.
In round one of the fight before whenever they actually, well, fight (and they will someday), Floyd won.
There is no substantial evidence that Manny Pacquiao has ever cheated. It doesn’t matter. Performance enhancers, or just PED allegations, are sport’s scarlet letter. In negotiating a fight, Pacquiao’s requests on purse parity, weight, glove size, and even monetary penalties for failure to make weight were granted by Camp Mayweather.
The fight died because Pacquiao didn’t want to adhere to the rigorous testing standards Floyd proposed and was even willing to subject himself to.
It’s enough to cast doubts in some minds even if there are plenty of historical analogies, discussed previously by this scribe, which say everything Pacquiao has achieved makes perfect sense in the context of time. At the point where Pacquiao felt it necessary to sue for defamation, it’s abundantly clear he and his team feel they’ve been besmirched, that his reputation has been injured by the allegations.
He took a body shot to make it Mayweather 10-9.
Few fights worth paying attention to end in the first round.
Memories are a funny thing. Prior to these negotiations, whether entirely a product of reality or not, perhaps the biggest argument was about the matchmaking guts of Pacquiao versus the cautious selectivity of Mayweather. Pacquiao has been positioned to make that argument again with his choice of March 13th not-Floyd-Mayweather opponent.
Round two has begun with the selection of Joshua Clottey (35-3, 20 KO). While expressions of disappointment are common in the aftermath of the Superfight that ain’t, it doesn’t take long to think about what Pacquiao-Clottey might look like.
And once those thoughts take shape, it takes even less time to start looking forward. While flawed, Clottey is rated by most as among the top five or six Welterweights for a reason. Physically strong, with a solid chin and durability, Clottey is an almost insane choice to replace Mayweather.
Walking away from an estimated haul between 25-40 million sounds nuts in the first place. Risking the still potentially looming purse, which could always come together for a Fall 2010 fight, for Clottey? A fighter who could mess around and win?
That’s just a little insane and the perfect way for Pacquiao to change the subject.
It doesn’t mean Clottey will win. He’s shown in the past that he can make strategic blunders, fail to press on the gas at the right times…but this is the chance of a lifetime for the Ghanaian. He can not only ruin the biggest fight in the game, he can knock off the presumed top dog in the sport.
Even if he loses, he promises Pacquiao will be in a hard, exciting fight.
All those ingredients in the bowl and Manny Pacquiao takes a decided edge in round two and the ball goes back over the net to Mayweather. Right now Mayweather can make a compelling case that Pacquiao, and not him, was responsible for their proposed fight falling apart.
If he doesn’t match the selection of Clottey, people will be quick to forget that or ignore it because watching good fights is preferable to caring about two prima donna elite athletes arguing outside the ring.
As noted by Ring’s Doug Fischer on Monday, “the four fighters in the running to face Floyd are Paul Malignaggi, Kermit Cintron, Timothy Bradley and Nate Campbell.”
Campbell (33-5-1, 25 KO), who will be 38 by the time of any fight, is a respectable veteran and someone who’s earned the chance at a big payday. However, he is probably not as compelling an opponent for Mayweather as Clottey is for Pacquiao because there is less reason to believe the underdog is really in the fight.
Of the four names noted by Fischer, only one stands out as truly outstanding theatre. He won’t help Floyd overcome those who argue that he doesn’t fight top notch Welterweights, but WBO Jr. Welterweight titlist Timothy Bradley (25-0, 11 KO) provides the sternest challenge of the bunch. If Mayweather opted for Bradley, it would be hard not to win round two as well. Bradley would be every bit as live as Clottey and, unlike the African, has some budding pound-for-pound type juice to go with hand speed the equal of Mayweather’s.
Round two of this superstar mental chess began with Pacquiao’s opponent selection. Like in a real fight, the world waits to see when, and how, Floyd will counter.
Cliff Rold is a member of the Ring Magazine Ratings Advisory Panel and the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be reached at roldboxing@hotmail.com