Author Topic: Long overdue Mayweather-Pacquiao fight will not save boxing  (Read 1023 times)

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Long overdue Mayweather-Pacquiao fight will not save boxing
« on: February 22, 2015, 01:10:40 PM »
By Dan Wetzel
February 20, 2015 6:19 PM
Yahoo Sports


For years now, when blessed with a free moment, Freddie Roach would pull up video of Floyd Mayweather fights and look for weaknesses. He was devising a strategy just in case his fighter, Manny Pacquiao, actually one day got a shot at the unbeaten champ.

Over and over, shoulder roll after shoulder roll, Roach, maybe more than any participant, promoter or fan, dreamed of the dream matchup.

"It's a huge challenge for Manny, no question," Roach told Yahoo Sports' Kevin Iole. "But I think it's a fight that he can win."

Now, or at least May 2, we'll find out.

The mega-fight is signed and what will come in a 2½-month blitz of promotion will be big hype, big talk and big money. The bout promises to shatter all sorts of records, from total gate to pay-per-view purchases until both parties rake in more than $100 million each.

What it won't do is "save" the sport or anything along that vein, even if that's what will almost certainly become a media narrative.

Boxing isn't going to be saved by anything. This is a different era, a different time. No one fight can spin the calendar back to the 1960s. In many ways, it doesn't need to be saved. There remains a vibrant base of fans, just more heavily centered on African-Americans and Hispanics.

Older white fans, obsessed with mainstream stick-and-ball sports, will always lament the lack of a compelling heavyweight division, but reality isn't changing.

Boys of that size are going to be pushed to basketball and football, where more money, opportunity and scholarships await.

Boxing has always been a sport for the poorest of the poor. Pacquiao left his boyhood home in General Santos City in the Philippines at age 14 because his parents had too many mouths to feed. Mayweather simply went into the family business, following his father Floyd Sr. and uncle Roger.


More at: http://sports.yahoo.com/news/long-overdue-mayweather-pacquiao-fight-will-not-save-boxing-030244707.html

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