With Pacquiao, Mayweather Loses his Swagger

http://www.boxingnews24.com/2010/07/with-pacquiao-mayweather-loses-his-swagger/

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With Pacquiao, Mayweather Loses his Swagger

July 21st, 2010

By Rasheed Catapang:Team Mayweather is speaking now, going as far as denying that a negotiation to fight Pacquiao ever took place. However, they’re still not answering the only question that really matters: When will Mayweather fight Pacquiao? Will he ever?

The words of Floyd Mayweather Jr. himself after a lengthy silence require deciphering. “I’m not interested in rushing to do anything right now. I’m not really thinking about boxing right now… Just relaxing.”

Sweet.

The words are coy and utterly unfit for a king. Mayweather, if he still fancies himself one, has to demand respect. Pacquiao, wanting to fill his coffer and all, declared war to Floyd. A king is not supposed to just move aside to avoid the onslaught.

Floyd just did.

What had happened to Floyd and where’s his swagger?

Say a kid took a bully’s lunch, demanded his pocket money and everything he had. Will the bully ask first what the kid is on before administering a beating?

Or the world’s giving you truckloads of money and a chance for you to prove what you’ve been saying all along. Won’t it be right to just take the money and do your thing?

Actions contrary to the norm would only mean something else. Floyd’s words in response to a direct challenge have no meaning.

Mayweather appears content to just grab the p4p crown through the poll, to battle it out in the court of public opinion – knowing full well that a fantasy fight concocted in man’s mind is winnable, considering he’s perceived to have the more superior skill set. However, once enclosed in the four corners of the ring, reality is sure to take an awful turn. Not having a loss because of a carefully managed boxing career, he sure will not welcome a world of hurt.

And a world of hurt is really what Pacquiao is all about.

The Golden Boy was still golden and shining before he came across the Pacmonster. But Oscar Dela Hoya had learned through 8 painful rounds what the little devil is able to give and what he, in the receiving end, is not able to take. In the face of perpetual onslaught, Dela Hoya hoped for the KO that never came. The experience, which for him is best left unremembered, was enough to make him retire.

The Hitman still had a perfect record at 10 stones (140lbs), never losing his mark at that weight, before being offered the hit on Pacquiao. It was over in 2 rounds and Ricky Hatton got what Dela Hoya had wished for himself. Hatton never really knew what hit him. Ricky was flattened and his career as a boxer is yet to recover, one step to retirement in each passing day – if he’s not there already.

Nevertheless, Mayweather had beaten those men too. But the end results of his fights with them were not as brutal, as decisive, as immediate nor as final. It was never more so in Hatton’s case, where the world was reminded of a primal force that is Pacquiao and the devastating effect of such power when unleashed.

Still, Mayweather had beaten those men too. And he has the same – if not more – of the preternatural skill that Pacquiao has.

The world demanded a clash inside the ring to prove who the better man is. But Mayweather’s not wavering in his conviction, whatever that is.

Perhaps Floyd’s real concern is that the world would stop and watch, and celebrate the fall of the mighty. If Paquiao is able to do to him what was done to Hatton, with the whole world watching, will he be able to live with the memory forever?

Hatton barely could when his pride is but a fraction of that of Mayweather. Pacquiao is all about pain and Mayweather is not ready for that.

Mayweather has retired, un-retired, and has been dangling with retirement. Pacquiao could make that permanent for him.

“I’m not interested in rushing to do anything right now. I’m not really thinking about boxing right now… Just relaxing.”

Floyd has lost the edge, the swagger and has given up the claim to Boxing’s Greatest Ever.

And while the King was looking down, the Jester stole his thorny crown. The courtroom was adjourned…

Floyd Mayweather Jr: The Derision

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http://www.boxingnews24.com/2010/07/floyd-mayweather-jr-the-derision/

Floyd Mayweather Jr: The Derision

July 19th, 2010

By Rasheed Catapang: The FIGHT between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao is off again. Blame not Mayweather, as pure a monk as anyone could be, whose vow of silence could not be broken even by an offer of something in the vicinity of 50 MILLION dollars.

For someone whose mouth is known to be as loud and as vicious as his fists, the silence that inhabited Mayweather’s camp during the second negotiation was truly deafening. Nevertheless, it was also telling. When Bob Arum’s impose time-line for Mayweather to accept a fight with Pacquiao expired with nary a word from the mouth that roared (or used to), Mayweather’s silence actually spoke volumes. And the truth was screaming all along.

Screaming like these:

LeBron James made the decision. Floyd, not stepping up to the plate, only invited derision. True, Lebron is now being criticized for his judgment call but at least he made a choice. He’ll be a villain for going for the jugular, everything for his much coveted NBA ring. Floyd, on the other hand, for reasons we could only imagine runs silently to the nearest exit.

Floyd talk the talk but failed to walk the walk. So forget what Floyd said about Pacquiao being easy and how he’ll whooped his ass. In reality, Pacquiao is one insurmountable Grendel. A southpaw with ultra fast hands, the Pacmonster is Floyd’s ultimate kryptonite. Father knows best and Floyd’s dad, in many different ways, had voiced such concern many times over.

Floyd is really all about the zero and he’ll not risk losing it to Pacquiao – not when every possibility points to that. He’ll sacrifice everything in the altar of that perfect record

Roger Mayweather, Floyd’s uncle and coach, will go to trial and might not be available for a fight in November this year. Tough luck. It might be a valid reason to call off the fight but surely Floyd’s father is just as qualified. And valid also is this argument: if by chance Roger is found guilty after the trial, would Floyd never ever fight? Floyd’s statement last Sunday invalidated both.

Floyd’s just not thinking about boxing right now. Not with Pacquiao in it.

David Haye is at present boxing’s biggest ducker. Should Floyd carry on with his charade, Haye might as well share or concede to him that spot. And Haye could always say the Klitschsko’s are bigger than him. Not so in Floyd’s case.

History repeats itself occurring first as tragedy, the second time as farce. And that sums up the story of Mayweather Vs. Pacquiao: The fight that wasn’t, isn’t and, judging from Floyd’s stance, will never be. Anyhow, it doesn’t matter now since we already know who’ll win that fight. The past pervading silence allowed us to figure that.

An Elegy

In the beginning was the word.

And words are meaningless.

The few that actually has are beyond my grasp. Beyond me in this moment. Or silent to me that I could not hear or say them.

Perhaps silence is the meaning.

My father has a way with words. And that was taken away too as he was laid to rest. But what his words stood for remains, and they mean a lot to the people touched by them.

I pay my respect in silence knowing too well that words would not suffice. My father is too great a man to ever need mine. Even the best things in life are best left unspoken.

Specially when they are gone forever.

My father showed me a life of black and white. It's either good or bad with no room for compromise. He took away the complexities and made life simple. He had thus known and lived a life that is honorable.

Stepping out of the shadows, I'd left that perfect world as all sons would do. Away from the guiding light and protective arms, I'd created my own as all sons did before me.

Black and white... but there were grays too. And all the other colors of the rainbow.

Life is complex to complicated men.

While great men lives in a world of Black & White.

I mourn the passing of the light, the great divide between black and white... Like all things passed, there's no going back.

And black & white and gray are words. Words are meaningless.

But Black and white and gray are memories too. Memories do have meaning.

In the beginning was the word. In the end, there were only memories.

Memories are forever.