Pacquiao/Mayweather: A few thoughts, a few questions.

I'm pretty new here and have been spending a bit of time just reading posts without saying much. Thought I'd better jump in at the deep end with a decent sized post. Here's some thoughts I've had recently regarding what's been hot in the last few weeks (a lot of Mayweather/Pacman bashing): Does anyone here like both Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao? Is it allowed? ;) I don't know much about either men outside the ring (I'd prefer not to know anything about either of them, or any boxer come to that - I find the less you know about famous people the better), but as far as fighting styles go I prefer Pacman. From the fights of his I've seen I can't really fault his performances. The main bugbear people (mostly Floyd fans) seem to have about him is that he's not fought the best at their best. Well I don't know about that - it seems to me that can be said of Mayweather too and indeed with a few exceptions most great fighters you care to think of from Joe Louis to Mike Tyson and beyond. From what I can tell Manny seems to have fought pretty much everyone of any significance. As for Mayweather, although his style doesn't appeal to me I wouldn't have a problem with someone who says he's a great fighter. I'll reserve judgment on what people are saying about his private life as it's secondhand 'knowledge' and therefore unreliable. As for their careers I don't think it's very useful to compare two fighters' resumes directly with each other like that. To me the important thing isn't so much who great fighters fight but rather how they fight who's in front of them. Taken by that measure Pacquiao is much more impressive to me, and he's still improving. I will say though that any fighter can't reasonably be expected to fight every single potential candidate and so they will have to choose who to fight one at a time from the available contenders and will be obviously looking to pick those with whom they expect to have some sort of advantage each time - that's just the nature of competitive sport. I was wondering something though. Let's assume that for whatever reason(s) they don't fight each other right now. Who would you like to see each boxer fighting instead? Haven't they both fought everyone worth fighting already? No-one wants to see Mayweather fighting Spadafora. There really isn't any point to this fight at all and I hope it's just a silly rumour, but who would you say would be a legitimate Mayweather fight? A lot of people are mentioning Martinez. I'm not convinced he's that great from what I've seen, so maybe. Weight is probably an issue though, not to mention politics. Berto? I don't know much about him, but that in itself is a bit of a problem - a much tougher fight than Spadafora and not enough marquee value for generating huge profits on PPV etc. - something Mayweather seems hugely concerned with. For me there isn't much point to Mayweather fighting anyone. He's obviously very avaricious while at the same time being very protective of his unbeaten record so there really is no logical choice for him right now. He needs someone who will generate the most money (Pacquiao) while also being an easy win (not Pacquiao). So I don't think that exists for him at this point. His best bet would be to fight someone easy to beat (but not as far down the line as Spadafora - that will damage his reputation; another thing he's very concerned about), and try to drum up enough publicity to try to increase the lesser profits. The bottom line is that Mayweather's in the position of someone selling something that they don't really want to part with and so they make unreasonable demands in the hopes that the buyer will turn them down and they get to keep their prized possession. If the buyer accepts the exorbitant fee though they will reluctantly sell them it. Maybe the best that could happen is that Floyd goes to jail. That way he won't need any more money, and he still has a clean record (well, boxing record at least), and we can all get into some heated hypothetical debates about what could have been, if only fate hadn't cruelly intervened. :) What about Pacquiao? He's guaranteed a lot of money whoever he fights, and he doesn't have a clean sheet to protect, but again who's out there? Mosley should be a straightforward win for him but then who? Berto? Martinez? Bradley? I haven't seen Berto fight but assuming Manny and Martinez could arrive at some compromise in weight my money would be on Pacman. I need to see more of Martinez though. Bradley's an interesting proposition. If Khan keeps improving and moves up to Welter that would be an interesting match up, but I think that would be some way down the road. Manny's got a few options though and I don't really see a downside to any of them. Come to think of it a Mayweather/Khan match could be interesting too, but again I doubt team Khan would be interested right now. Here's what I could get behind given the current state of play: Manny fights Mosley, Mayweather fights Clottey. Both good tune-ups. They both win in style. They both get to the point they're so pissed with each other what with the lawsuits and everything that they both say 'fukkit' and agree to fight each other and we have a classic grudge match around Christmas that's been brewing for awhile. It's a great match because they both decide to go toe to toe and slug it out to prove who's the daddy. It goes to the scorecards and it's close. In fact it's a draw. It wins the fight of the year for 2011. Everyone's a winner! :)