By Dean Parr
While this week's showdown between Miguel Cotto and Manny Pacquiao is a truly salivating prospect, I wondered what the hype would be like if Floyd Mayweather was in the opposite corner to the Filipino wrecking machine. It would arguably determine the best pound-for-pound fighter of this generation, but in all probability this fight will never happen.
Why? Well, in short, Mayweather Promotions and Bob Arum’s Top Rank would never accept less than 55% of the purse for their own fighter, and there isn't 110% to go around. Fighters and promoters alike are too wary of Don King style practices now; they know when their fighter is getting a raw deal. Unfortunately, though, boxers also let their egos get in the way of good fights; this is shown by the fact that neither Pacquiao nor Mayweather would be willing to take a 50:50 split.
This is partly because there is this silly idea in boxing that if a fighter loses, they go to the bottom of the pile, even if they have just lost to a top quality fighter; leaving fighters like Mayweather with no incentive to seek out dangerous fighters like Pacquiao.
Just look at the Hatton vs. Pacquiao fight. Despite the fact Manny Pacquiao is arguably the best pound for pound fighter in the world, many have suggested that Hatton doesn't have a chance at the top level any more. This seems petty, especially considering that in the fight previous Hatton clinically dealt with Paulie Malignaggi; a good fighter with superb technical skills and a great chin.
The sport of Mixed Martial Arts is slowly but surely catching up with boxing in popularity, but this is only because boxing is allowing it to. In the UFC and Strikeforce, arguably the top two organizations in MMA, the best fight the best and this is a major attraction to casual fans.
For example, Dan Hardy and Mike Swick will fight at UFC 105 to determine the number one contender in their division (welterweight). The UFC could have very easily utilised boxing-style matchmaking and fed these two men winnable opponents en-route to their title shots but have, instead, set up an incredible fight which will leave no ambiguity as to who is the true number one.
Compare this to the heavyweight division in boxing right now. Kevin Johnson was scheduled to fight rising star Odlanier Solis at the end of 2009, but instead of taking this fight and determining who the true number one contender is, Johnson has been fast-tracked into a bout against Vitali Klitschko.
This is bad for two reasons. Firstly, we (as boxing fans) don't really know who truly deserves to be in the ring with Vitali this winter; and secondly, Johnson isn't ready for a fight of this proportion because he hasn't been anywhere near this level before. A win over Solis and an extra six months would have given Johnson a massive boost going into the Klitschko fight. Instead, he has been pushed in with the Ukrainian before he is ready, and he will most likely pay the price, and fall straight to the bottom of the food chain in the process.
Consider this though. If Johnson had fought Solis and lost, would Johnson's stock have gone down? In this writer's opinion absolutely not, because people know the qualities of Johnson - it would just mean that Solis was proven to be an immense prospect. One just needs to look at the UFC once again to see why a post-defeat Johnson would still be considered to be a good fighter.
Randy Couture has lost his last two fights, yet he is the main event on the next UFC card. The UFC have plenty of names, so why have they put the out-of-form Couture at the top of the show? Well, fans realise that Couture is a top quality fighter, who fights the best and does his best, so the fact he has lost his last two is irrelevant. He has great fights and people know he is an excellent fighter, so his 16-10 record, which looks unimpressive on paper, doesn't cloud people's opinions of him.
In contrast, imagine a 16-10 fighter in boxing headlining a televised card and being the main attraction on the bill. If anyone can find one, email me and I will send you a congratulatory badge. Egos need to disappear to a certain extent in boxing, so losing undefeated records isn't absolutely crucial to a fighter's drawing ability. However, the killer isn't necessarily the egos of the fighters involved; it's the promoters behind them.
In the UFC, there are no journeymen - fact. All fights are made to be competitive, and no one is drafted in to lose. Dana White and his company don't let their fighters take the easy route - just look at Michael Bisping for evidence of this. In his last bout, he was brutally knocked out by Dan Henderson, yet in his comeback fight this coming weekend he has to face a very dangerous opponent in Denis Kang. While Bisping is the narrow favorite, this fight could go either way, and adds to the excitement of the whole occasion.
Let us now inspect an example of a boxing comeback after a brutal knockout. Khoren Gevor was taken out by Arthur Abraham in 2007 but make no mistakes, Abraham, as many are now beginning to believe, is a world class fighter. So why, then, did Gevor have to fight a 4-6 fighter who had lost his last five in his next bout? This doesn't have people licking their lips at all, but a bout against someone of the level of Marco Antonio Rubio would have been an enticing contest and one that was winnable for Gevor at the same time.
Unfortunately, however, promoters know there is money to be made with record fillers such as Gevor's return fight, and they don't want to risk their prized possessions because they don't want to lose out on money-making opportunities. This insecurity on behalf of the promoters baffles fans though, as the fans know full well top fighters can beat 4-6 journeymen and fights like these don't get people interested.
However, if one big promoter had a monopoly over everything, a la the UFC in MMA, the situation in boxing could be very different. After all, that promoter would have nothing to lose by throwing his two best fighters in together, as it is a win/win situation regardless. Maybe this way, the top fights would happen, and everyone would come out better off: the fans, the winners and even the losers.
Unfortunately though, I realize I would be living in a dream world if I actually expected this to happen. Many boxers want the high reward/low risk fights that promoters can get them, although in fairness the Showtime Super Six has broken the mould here. This style of promotion has got to be the future of boxing, otherwise fans are being given the incentive to grab the remote and switch over to watch MMA, or another sport, on the other channel.
