This is why HBO’s Face Off was created.
It takes so little effort to sell a fight when there is so much enmity between the fighters.
If this was scripted drama, all three men would deserve some type of short-form Emmy, that’s how well this 15 minute conversation encapsulates complexity of the rivalry between Miguel Cotto and Antonio Margarito.
I’m challenging myself to think of a more perfectly cast rivalry and I honestly cannot. Nowhere else in sports will you find two men so capable of bringing out the best and worst in each other inside and outside the ring.
While their rivalry isn’t as storied as some of the more revered series the sport has produced, it fulfils the core element that makes any boxing rivalry great; the almost romantic codependence between two men whose personalities and skill sets complement each other to the point of creating a contrast that can create legendary fights inside the ring, and the type of interactions outside of the ring that become part of boxing’s rich canon of lore.
As Max Kellerman states during the interview, their first fight was a modern classic, one of the top-five fights of the last decade and arguably the best big money fight of the last 10 years. At that time, Cotto was a hot undefeated young bull who had ground down a succession of credible opposition in a way that recalled a smaller Jake Lamotta with nimble feet that had grown up dancing Salsa and Bomba in Caguas. Margarito was seen as the sport’s most avoided fighter, standing at nearly 6’ tall, he presented an imposing figure to most welterweights and his granite chin and unbelievable punch output had writers and fighters calling him unbeatable in the division. Unbeatable and Unbeaten met in a classic war that would become a worthy iteration in the lengthy rivalry between Mexico and Puerto Rico.
On that night, despite excellent lateral movement and underrated ring generalship, Cotto–the body punching grinder–was ground down by the larger, better conditioned Margarito, submitting in the 11th round and taking a knee before his trainer and uncle Evangelista Cotto threw in a white towel to save his fighter.
What should have been Margarito’s crowning moment was quickly marred in controversy when in his next fight; the Tijuana Tornado was caught with illegal handwraps by the veteran eyes of “Brother” Nazim Richardson before a welterweight title fight against Shane Mosley where he suffered his first knockout defeat. Banned for over a year, Margarito became a pariah in the boxing community, and the fairness of his greatest victory would now be questioned.
Many, including Cotto, still believe that the hand wraps that were confiscated the night of the Mosley fight were the same ones he used the night of the clash with Cotto, with the pink discoloration on one side suggesting as much, but we’ll never know. Was Cotto’s face shredded, to the point that his late father recalled the tears of blood his son shed in the locker room after the fight, because of legal punches or by the slowly hardening plaster in Margarito’s gloves? Was Cotto grimacing at each uppercut to the body due to fatigue and discomfort, or was there something unnatural about each punch that he could not reconcile?
While we’ll never know what exactly happened the night of their first fight, both men now attempt to gain closure with this second, and maybe definitive chapter of their rivalry. With a new trainer, and a more fundamentally sound technique, Cotto hopes to silence the ghosts of his first defeat, where Margarito hopes to clear his name and reclaim his greatest victory by definitively defeating his Puerto Rican foil.
Even though, when boiled down to its fundamental elements, boxing is a spectacle created when two people are given legal sanction to beat each other to a state of near unconsciousness with complete legal immunity, fights are rarely heated personal affairs. To most fighters it’s a sport, and that’s why much of HBO’s reality-based boxing program can fall flat so spectacularly. The last Face Off was between Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez, two sublimely skilled fighters who just completed the third iteration of their rivalry this past Saturday. Fiercely competitive inside the ring, Marquez and Pacquiao generated so little intensity during their Face Off that Kellerman was reduced to using them as life-sized dolls to teach boxing techniques.
It was just as exciting as it sounds.
There were no personal issues brewing between Marquez and Pacquiao, no sense that one had wronged the other. There was no smoldering clash of personalities and no heated words exchanged. This is a sport, one they take immense pride in, but nothing to hold grudges over.
With Cotto and Margarito, you have two fighters evenly matched inside the ring, and diametrically opposed outside of it. Inheriting the legacy of Puerto Rican great Felix “Tito” Trinidad, Miguel Cotto became an instant star on the boxing-rabid island, however his personality stopped him from hitting the transcendent level of fame that Trinidad achieved. Where Tito was as admired for his god-given punching power and fierce instincts as a finisher he was loved for his gregarious personality and cheerful candor. Cotto has always been much more workmanlike in the ring and on the microphone. Taciturn and aloof, Cotto pursued champions and tomato cans with the same dispassionate focus, this was his job, and he did it with the efficiency of a Caribbean Terminator. Uninspired by post fight interviews delivered in a dull baritone that recalls a Spanish-accented Arnold Schwarzenegger, Puerto Rican fight fans never elevated him to the level of their more vocal and charismatic champions.
It seems that the only person in boxing with the ability to bring a note of emotion out of Cotto is Antonio Margarito. Boxing narratives often cast fighters as heroes and villains, and no fighter in the sport today so readily embraces his role as the black hat than Antonio Margarito. A hard man from a hard city, Margarito’s jet black hair, Satanic goatee, and beady eyes evoke the image of a vaudeville villain, and his relentless, physical style in the ring make him an entertaining fighter, but a difficult one to like.
Good villains always display two personality traits. The first is an unshaking belief that they’re actually the hero of their own story. After the hand wrap controversy, Margarito was destined to play the bad guy in every promotion he’s involved in, mainly because he refuses to take any responsibility for the wraps. He vehemently maintains all these years later that he had no idea what was being put on his hands. A prizefighter not knowing what goes into his hand wraps is as plausible as a football player not knowing what goes into his helmet, but Margarito will probably swear to his dying day that he was completely ignorant of the contents of his wraps at the Mosley fight (he’s not above joking about it.)
The other key trait of a great villain that Margarito personifies is the ability to humanize the hero by demonstrating heroic qualities that the white hat lacks. In their first fight, whether by legal means or not, he was able to break Cotto’s will, and give us our first look at the man behind the poker face. In those last few rounds, Cotto appeared distressed, at times afraid and ultimately resolute in his defeat.
He quit.
When asked by Max Kellerman if he was willing to die in the ring, Margarito claimed that he would proudly do so, while Cotto approximated a smile.
Die!? For the fans!? This is my job.
Rationally speaking, Cotto is right, boxing is just his job, and he sees no honour in leaving his children fatherless for the sake of a highlight reel. Unfortunately, boxing is a demands its own rationale and I’m sure many of the fans and writers who lustfully bayed for Margarito’s blood after the hand wrap scandal played out can appreciate Margarito’s dedication to boxing as a blood ritual if not his understanding of the rules.
That’s what makes this type of rivalry so vital to the sport, two fighters who could have lived out their careers as flat archetypes have now turned one another into nuanced characters with enough depth to generate genuine drama. Cotto is the proud champion, wounded by the memory of an unjust loss, who thinks he should be judged by the winces he puts on the faces of other fighters, not the smiles he puts on the faces of the fans but becomes bitter when they fail to cheer him. Margarito is the outcast looking to claw his way to redemption or die trying, having repeated the same transparent lies so many times that they’ve become a mantra.
Cotto’s poise, class and presence make Margarito look like a shifty, barbarian, as he slinks in his chair, venomously dismissing the handwrap allegations. Margarito’s courage and reverence for the legacy of Mexican ring gladiators make Cotto’s workmanlike approach to the sport look indifferent to the point of disrespect.
This is that golden moment when both villain and hero offer fans so much to cheer for, and unlike many other “event” fights this year, Cotto and Margarito will not leave the fireworks at the press conference. They’re bonded in the most important way, equally skilled, equally limited, equally vulnerable, equally fearless, and equally desperate to exorcise the specters of their last encounter.
I can’t wait.

After dealing with Inohara-san’s endless energy, our third day of shooting had a completely different feel and pace. My last interview subject in Kobe was one of Onitsuka Tiger’s most heralded athletes, Kenji Kimihara. Despite his many accomplishments, Kimihara-san was humble and quiet, he arrived with his son and grandson and he exuded a nervous energy that was striking considering that, as a Silver medalist and the winner of multiple marathons, I was sure he had done his share of press and interviews.

Through some bizarre twist of logic, this man was nervous to speak to me. An athlete of the highest order who, well into his 60′s still runs at least one marathon a year was nervous about being interviewed by a relative pup like me. Feeling that I should be more nervous than him, I suddenly found myself in a feedback loop of nervousness, his nerves amplifying mine. What resulted was a jittery, sweaty palmed performance of pleasantries on my part in our makeshift green room that did nothing to calm either one of us down.

I was honestly prepared for a horrendous day of shooting, until the cameras actually started rolling and we got into the flow of the interview. Once Kimihara-san was able to speak candidly about his experiences with Onitsuka Tiger leading up to his triumph at the 1968 games, his nervousness melted and gave way to a more easy going energy as he recounted the customisations he made to the shoes that he wore to a silver medal finish in Mexico City. Working hand-in-hand with our product team, Kimihara-san was the catalyst for many of the developments seen in the MAGIC RUNNER pictured above. The holes he cut in the shoes to prevent blisters would give birth to our first ventilation system for runners, where the removal of fabrics on the heel tab and ankle support led to a reduction in the weight and stiffness of the heel of the shoe that made it lighter and more form fitting.

Having already spoken to part of the development team that had worked on the MAGIC RUNNER and other shoes from that era, it was interesting to get the perspective of the athlete whose professional life literally hinged on the product’s ability to perform under duress. Looking at his heavily customised samples, it was clear that Kimihara-san shared Sakaguchi- and Inohara-sans’ view that the product could always be better, and by “better” I mean more efficient, and more practical.

One thing I started to take away from these meetings was Onitsuka Tiger’s early fixation with being The Best. I don’t speak Japanese but the word Ichiban (number one) came up over and over again in each interview. In the West, there is a tendency to paint Asian cultures as demure and humble, but the men I got to meet with in Kobe all seemed obsessed with being the best: the best athlete, the best product designer, the best brand, the best, number one, ichiban. Kimihara-san was a great example of the dichotomy at play in that fixation. On the one hand, he was quiet and nervous at the prospect of being interviewed about his achievements, on the other, his youth was spent in pursuit of the loftiest of goals, and he had no shame admitting he wanted nothing less than Gold.

Kimihara-san and the products he helped create were cited more than once as examples of the idea of Choujyu-saksusen literally “The Summit Tactic.” As one of the core principles of the brand, Choujyu-sakusen could most easily be definited as the idea that starting from the top will yield better results and deepr learning than starting from the bottom. By focusing on making the best product for the best athletes, the brand was able to grow quickly in terms of technology and reputation, much faster than they would have if they had focused on making products for the mass market with the goal of cashing out immediately.

After his gracious interview, we bid adieu to Kimihara-san and to Kobe, as I traveled with the crew to Tokyo for our last week of shooting and our final interview.

More to come.

Original OK Basketball Shoe from 1950

While I was in Kobe, I got the chance to check out the ASICS Sports Museum, these are some of the pieces on display there, but barely the tip of the iceberg.

Marathon Tabi from 1953

Delegation shoes for the Japanese athletes at the 1952 Melbourne Olympics

Kenji Kimihara's Silver-Medal-Winning Magic Runner from the 1968 Olympic Games

Sakaguchi-san's pride and joy: Nylon wrestling shoe from 1955

The LIMBER LEATHER, the first sneaker to feature the now-famous Tiger Strike

Shoes worn by Yukio Kasaya on his Gold medal ski jump at the 1972 Sapporo Olympics, combination leather/rubber sole

Legendary Finnish runner Lasse Viren's Gold Medal winning RUNSPARKS from the 1976 Olympics

GEHRIG Baseball Spikes from 1974

Astronaut Training shoes inspired by traditional Japanese Tabi

I was just verbally sparing with my girlfriend about the value of Muhammad Ali as an individual outside of his boxing ability and political statements. It’s no secret that I look up to him, so does my reverence make me biased? Probably. Could Ali’s trash talk teeter on the line between self-aggrandizing and bluntly abusive? Sure. But was it always entertaining? Certainly.
I never felt that Ali’s trash talk came from a place of malice, it seemed fairly harmless to me, especially compared to his contemporaries:

And that is just in boxing. It’s not that rare for athletes today to curse each other out, and threaten each other with grave bodily harm. Ali talked trash, but he never sounded crude or ignorant. Not only did he use trash talk to promote his fights in an entertaining way that had never been seen before, but he may have invented battle rap:

He was also a master of the mental game that is so important in boxing. The lowest form of victory in boxing is a victory based on physical advantages, the highest form is a victory based on superior strategy and the manipulation of your opponents actions through planning. To attain that form of victory, a fighter needs to use the tools at his disposal to control an opponent to the point where none of that opponents actions are the product of their own free will or game plan, it’s the creation of dominance by forcing the opponent to react, not act. Ali understood that the road to that type of victory begins before the the fighters enter the ring, it starts in the gym, and on the professional stage, continues at the press conference.
I do feel a sense of remorse for Ali’s most famous victims or this type of gamesmanship: George Foreman and Joe Frazier. Foreman was a young fighter when he ran into Ali, and Ali slowly broke down his confidence before breaking down his hulk-like physique in Kinshasa. Steeped in the wave of praise that follows an undefeated, power punching champion, Foreman must have believed himself invincible, and he was until Ali convinced him otherwise. After that 1974 defeat—Ali’s greatest victory—Foreman fell into a deep depression that lead to a 2 year lay-off, and his career and confidence wouldn’t recover until he recaptured the heavyweight title 20 years later in 1994. While Foreman’s victory over Michael Moorer was one of the more heart-warming underdog stories in recent sporting history, it still stands as a monument to the depth of those taunts—it took this man two decades to shake off the effects of Ali’s verbal jousting and return to the heights of the sport.
Frazier I believe never recovered from the verbal games Ali played with him. I find it sad that Frazier’s story is only told in the context of Ali’s, he is a footnote in the story of another fighter, however had he fought 10 years earlier or 10 years later, he would probably be remembered as one of, if not the greatest Heavyweight of all time. Ali and Frazier were perfect foils, the boxer and the puncher, and Ali’s legacy in the ring is invaluably enhanced by their incredible rivalry.
The Ali-Frazier rivalry is significant in that it began right after Muhammad Ali’s public conversion to Islam. Not since the days of Jack Johnson and the “Great White Hype” had middle Americans so clamoured for a champion to be vanquished. Against his will, the Philadelphia-bred brawler who clawed his way to an Olympic gold medal became the “White man’s champion” and he was viewed as such by Muslims and Black people around the world caught up in the racial climate of civil rights and independence movements around the world. As the story spun itself into myth, Ali became the people’s champion, wrongly stripped of his titles because of his refusal to fight in Vietnam, while Frazier was the sellout—a paper champion installed by The Man who hoped that by beating Ali, Frazier would show the superiority of his Christianity and his America. I can only imagine the bitterness of a man who just wanted to compete; unfairly saddled with the expectations of people he never felt he represented and viciously vilified by the for whom he hoped he would be a champion and example.
Unfortunately, not only did Ali’s trash talk bury Frazier’s legacy and standing in the minds of uninitiated spectators to the sport, they also affected Frazier the man. In his 2004 book of reflections and poetry, Soul of a Butterfly Ali writes of Frazier in a poem titled the “Silent Warrior:”

There live a great man named Joe
who was belittled by a loudmouth foe.
While his rival would taunt and tease
Joe silently bore the stings.
And then fought like gladiator in the ring.
For every struggle that Joe survived,
For every dispute he endured, to rise,
Joe will go down in history
as a model for champions to come.
While Frazier was a man of few words,
Ali was a world of mouth,
but he found his place in history.
Now his heart can express him well.
Joe Frazier was a silent warrior,
whom Ali silently admired.
One could not rise without the other.

Are those the words of an asshole? Sort of, he admits he was wrong to say what he said. But in my opinion, his self awareness and willingness to humble himself absolve him slightly of his actions.
I think there is something to be said of the place that my past has in my feelings towards Ali. Boys without fathers spend their lives collecting father figures. I find it hard to separate the man from the legend, the man was a terrible husband and a questionable father who drilled opponents inside and outside the ring. The legend was a master of his craft, and a charismatic master of men who brought stone giants to their knees with his words and pounded them into gravel with his fists.
I apologise for the man, but I still need the legend.

1. Very remarkable; extraordinary.
2. Perceptible by the senses or through immediate experience.

A few months after redeeming himself by claiming the WBC Middlewight Championship from Carl Froch in a war of attrition, Danish Boxer Mikkel Kessler has exited Showtime’s Super-Six tournament citing eye injuries that will take him out of boxing completely for at least 9 months. According to his doctor, Gerhard Lang Kessler suffers from “a weakness of the superior oblique muscle of his left eye…To continue boxing, the muscle needs a proper rest, meaning no fighting or sparring for nine months.” This makes Kessler the second fighter to pull out of the tournament after Jermain Taylor suffered a concussion in the final round of his first round fight with Arthur Abraham.
Jermain Taylor was replaced by the unimpressive Allan Green, below are my picks for the most interesting options to replace Kessler:

1. Lucian Bute
The most glaring omission from the Super Six’s original line-up would make the most exciting addition in Kessler’s absence. Bute is exciting, talented and comes with a rapid hometown following. Unfortunately, the chances that Bute would join the tournament at this stage are slim to none. First, it’s universally acknowledged that Bute is the best Super-Middle not included in the tournament, and some argue he might be the best Super-Middleweight in the world. I personally believe that both Andre Ward and Andre Dirrell would beat Bute, but as long as he stays out of the tournament we will never know and he will be able to hold on to the mystique of an unbeaten record, while having an ironclad excuse for not fighting the best fighters in the division.
Assuming he keeps up his winning ways, as soon as the tournament is over, fans will clamour for the winner of the Super-Six to face Bute to crown the king at 168, and Bute would have the chance to be part of the biggest fight in the division without having to face at Arthur Abraham, Carl Froch, Andre Dirrell or Andre Ward on the way. In a sense, in the greater scheme of things Bute’s exclusion from the field gave him an automatic bye to a Ring Championship showdown which could make him the first lineal champion in the division since 2008 and part of the biggest money fight in the division since Joe Calzaghe’s retirement.
That’s assuming that Bute stays in the division. There are talks of him moving up to fight fellow Montrealite Montrealian Canadian Jean Pascale, in what would be one of the largest fights in that city’s history. Pascal just claimed the Ring’s Lightheavyweight Championship in a huge event in Montreal against Chad Dawson, and both fighter’s camps are eager to sign the two hometown stars against each other. That fight–which the rangy Bute would have a great chance at winning against the undersized Pascal–could also net Bute a Ring championship, a major payday and a torso-full of sanctioning body trinkets by the end of next Spring, without having to face the steep competition of the Super-Six.
All things considered, Bute is disappointingly the slimmest possibility in the race to replace Kessler. Which brings us to…

2. Kelly Pavlik
The former Undisputed Middleweight Champion has gone from one of boxing’s brightest young stars to a faded veteran in the span of 3 years. After claiming the crown from Jermain Taylor in 2007, Pavlik looked to become the force that Bernard Hopkins was in the division for so many years. However, a loss to B-Hop followed by a long bout of inactivity due to injuries and illness took him off of most fan’s radars before his uneventful return against unheralded contenders Marco Rubio and Miguel Espino. This April, a wooden and confused Pavlik was thoroughly thumped by Sergio Martinez, looking like a shadow of himself in the process. If Pavlik was weight-drained as some have speculated, the Super-Six might be a great entrance for Pavlik into the Super Middleweight division. Allan Green, Kessler’s planned opponent, is the softest touch available in the tournament, and a knockout of Green would place him in the running for a semi-final spot if he inherits the 2 points Kessler earned by beating Carl Froch in the second round of the tournament.
I would give Pavlik a good chance to get the better of Carl Froch and at the very least produce fireworks against Arthur Abraham. Given his difficulty handling slick boxers, I don’t know if he would fare very well at all against the tourney’s two Andres, Dirrell a Roy-Jones-like speedster with unnatural agility, defensive reflexes and handspeed and Ward, the tournament leader whose fluid, measured style spoils and neutralises his opponents advantages. Even though he would be an outside shot to win it all, entry into the Super Six would give Pavlik the ability to jump right into the Top 10 of a strong division and get some big fights. Even if he loses, as long as he is not blown out or embarassed, he could go a long way in salvaging what has been a damaged reputation of late.

3. Librado Andrade
Best known for his two losing efforts against Bute, Librado Andrade lives up to the reputation of the Mexican prizefighting tradition. He’s a hard-nosed brawler without much polish who always comes to fight. Despite his biggest fights being losses against Bute and Kessler, the fact that he is one of very few Mexican fighters at the higher weights continues to keep him in demand as a name opponent. While he may not be the most talented of the prospective replacements, Andrade brings two things to the table that could bring a great deal of excitement to the tournament.
First, there is a dirth of Latino fighters in the division, and adding Andrade to the mix of the Super-Six would add a new dimension to attract Hispanic fans–a major block of the boxing public. All of the first-round fights were billed as a battle between Europe and The United States, and the results of the subsequent fights were often reported through that lens, adding the exciting and affable Andrade, who is Mexican-born but California based, would add nuance to these stories. Andrade’s inclusion would simultaneously provide a broader picture of American boxing than Green, Ward and Dirrell–all African-American, all seasoned in the National Amateur system–provide, and also bring the type of ethnic conflict that promoters have thrived on since the 1920′s.
Secondly, Andrade always comes to fight, he would be a vulnerable underdog against the likes of Abraham and Ward, but he would be a live dog who would go down fighting, creating exciting moments on his way down. Despite his vaunted skills, Kessler is an easily discouraged fighter, and you could see his enthusiasm fading during his fights with Ward and Calzaghe. Similarly, Allan Green checked out of the Ward fight more or less after the first round, seemingly content to hold and resigned to lose a 12 round fight on his feet. Andrade’s resolve has never faltered during his 32 professional fights, and even in his lone knockout loss to Bute, he seemed to have the desire to fight on even though his ability to was sapped by a perfect body shot. Adding Andrade to the mix might not change the results of the Super-Six greatly, but he would at the very least provide an injection of excitement into a tournament that has produced some fine performances but only one real ring war in Kessler-Froch.

Honorable mention: Nobody
A fourth option would be to side step the idea of a replacement, and just narrow the field to the current top four fighters: Froch, Abraham, Ward and Dirrell. Despite his indignation at not being included in the original field, Allan Green was a complete disappointment in his first fight against Andre Ward. It’s very rare to see a fighter on his level lose every second of every minute of every round of a fight. Green’s inability to be competitive against Ward might lead to Showtime just cutting him and his promoter Lou DiBella a deal to exit the tournament at this stage, effectively turning the next round of fights into the Semi Finals, leading up to an accelerated Final between the two winners. Of course considering that the Super-Six as an event probably draws most of its revenue by building up its ad values as it moves toward the scheduled final, accelerating the process might not be an attractive option to Showtime, or the fighter’s respective promoters.

“If you want to be great, find someone you like, figure out what you like about them, then steal it.”
-B.B King

Found a Youtube channel filled with really technical in-depth analysis of the technique of some of the greats of the Classical Era of Boxing. Definitely worth a view for fight nerds like myself. The above video breaks down the science behind Charley Burley’s boxing style. One of the more enigmatic figures of the 1940′s golden era, Burley is considered the greatest fighter to never win a world title as greats like Sugar Ray Robinson and Billy Conn felt he was too elusive and too dangerous to fight.

To those that haven’t been paying attention, the boxing world is afire over Floyd Mayweather’s silence in regards to a proposed mega fight with Manny Pacquiao. Pacquiao’s promoter, Bob Arum, set a deadline for Midnight Saturday before his company Top Rank would begin negotiating with two of their in house fighters–Miguel Cotto and Antonio Margarito–on Pacquiao’s behalf.

Mayweather has been uncharacteristically silent during this second round of negotiations. The first round earlier in the year was nixed when the two parties couldn’t come to terms over drug testing protocols. Mayweather demanded random, Olympic-style testing performed by the United States Anti-Doping Agency, while Pacquiao claimed that blood tests too close to fight night would weaken him, even going far enough to blame his last defeat, to Erik Morales in 2005, on an 11th hour blood test.

Let me preface the rest of the post by saying I’m not a big fan of either fighter.

I admire both of them for embodying so much that is great about the sport of boxing in completely different ways. Pacquiao is a fearless throwback to legends of the sport like Robert Duran and Henry Armstrong who scaled weight classes, fighting, and beating, the best fighters in several divisions by going right after them. Mayweather is a pure tactician who frustrates opponents inside the ring with the same defensive tricks that Wilfred Benitez and Pernell Whitaker used so well, while infuriating them outside the ring with a sense of showmanship and grandeur that many fighters seem to have forgotten is an integral part of fight promotion and potentially a greater factor in Mayweather’s fame than his vaunted talents. That being said, I don’t consider myself a fan of either one, I admire and appreciate their skills, and I watch their fights, but my emotional connection to each doesn’t go beyond that.

Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for the majority of boxing fans, who have drawn fierce and tense battle lines over fight since it was first proposed after Pacquiao’s win over Oscar De La Hoya. The then-retired Mayweather had bowed out as the Pound-for-Pound best in Boxing, now Manny Pacquiao had taken his place, and continued to cement his spot at the top of the heap with knockouts of Ricky Hatton, David Diaz and Miguel Cotto. When Floyd returned from his brief retirement, the boxing world clamoured for a fight between the number one and number two fighters in the world. There are several factors that make the match-up one of the most intriguing of the modern era; first you’ve got the fact that no on-paper analysis could put one fighter over the other in any ranking, the contrast in in-ring styles and of course the contrast in their personae outside the ring.

The contentiousness of the match-up has resulted in some over the top reactions from both fighters’ fan bases. Mayweather fans claim that Pacquiao is on steroids and that he’s afraid to face Floyd on an even playing field. They also claim that Manny’s place at the top of many Pound-for-Pound lists is unwarranted since Floyd has returned and continued his winning ways in two bouts against future First-Ballot Hall-of-Famers Shane Mosley and Juan Manuel Marquez, both of whom were beaten in impressive fashion and made to look so amateurish that casual fans couldn’t recognize them for the elite fighters that they are. On the flip side, Pacquiao’s fans claim that anyone who disputes their man’s pound-for-pound and sometimes all-time great status is a racist, and that Mayweather is using the steroid issue to dodge a dangerous fighter who poses a legitimate threat to his much-coveted “0.”

Now that Mayweather seems to be responsible for the breakdown of the second round of negotiations, the Pacquiao supporters have been burning up the internet claiming that he is afraid of many, with many so-called analysts calling him an outright coward. Now I’m not a fan of Floyd’s, but I just can’t accept that. There are several reasons Floyd might have been silent during the negotiations–a media gag order agreed upon by both sides probably being the most important–but I honestly don’t think that Floyd has much to fear from Manny as a fighter. Stylistically, it’s a horrible match-up for Pacquiao, and a great one for Mayweather, who has beaten all types of fighters, big-punchers, pressure fighters, boxers, and so on without so much as losing a round.

In my opinion, there are two reasons for Floyd’s indecisiveness on the fight. First his uncle and trainer Roger Mayweather is awaiting sentencing for a domestic incident, which could see him removed from Floyd’s corner for any fights in the near future. Facing your toughest opponent in the highest profile fight of your career without the most consistent presence in your corner might be too daunting of a gamble for “Money May.” The importance of fighter-trainer relationships cannot be overstated, and the Mayweather duo have one of the most fruitful and successful partnerships in the history of boxing. If the shoe was on the other foot, and Pacquiao had to sign on to a fight not knowing if Freddie Roach would be in his corner, I highly doubt he would commit.

On the other hand, I feel that there is a good chance that Mayweather is balking at the 50-50 split that Arum and co had proposed. Last year Mayweather was second only to Tiger Woods in Forbes’ list of the highest earning athletes in the world. Ranking higher than Lebron James, Kobe Bryant, Lance Armstrong and Pacquiao, Mayweather is one of the biggest commodities in sports, and the bare numbers combined with his massive ego would probably result in him wanting a bigger share of the pot than Pacquiao. As the face of boxing, he might deserve it, but considering how contentious the negotiations have been up to this point, I doubt he’ll receive it. Considering that he allowed Oscar De La Hoya to walk away with the lion’s share of the money from their fight, he might feel that win, lose or draw, he deserves his come up. Despite his superior performance in the ring, De La Hoya walked away the financial winner because of his team’s superior performance at the negotiating table, and that is a lesson that Mayweather might be remembering as reports of his cowardice run rampant in the blogosphere.

At the end of the day, I think what frustrates the fans most is that Mayweather realises that he doesn’t need the money, he doesn’t need our respect and he certainly doesn’t need Pacquiao, but unfortunately, we as fight fans need this fight.

From a conversation with Journalist Thomas Hauser:

Muhammad Ali is humble in many ways, but he also takes pleasure in being famous.

Years ago, when Mike Tyson was in his prime, Ali asked me, “If I walked down one side of the street and Mike Tyson walked down the other, which of us would have more people on his side?”

“You would,” I answered honestly.

“If I walked down one side of the street and Bill Cosby walked down the other, who would have more people; Bill Cosby or me?”

“You.”

“If I walked down one side of the street and Little Richard, Chubby Checker and Chuck Berry all walked down the other, which side would have more people?”

“Yours.”

“Now Muhammad was on a roll.”

“If I walked down one side of the street and Elvis Presley walked down the other, who would have more people?”

“Muhammad, I’ll be honest with you,” I answered. “Overseas, you might. But here in the United States, I think it would be Elvis.”

That brought silence followed by, “Well, that’s because Elvis has been dead for a long time and people would want to see if it was really him.”