By: Sean Crose
Hard as it may be for some to believe, the Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao fight went down ten whole years ago this week. The massive bout, which still holds the pay per view record a decade later, actually made national news – which back then, like today, was, well, big news. Generally speaking, it was a fight the general public itself wanted to see – no small thing. Just how big a deal was this fight? Big enough that an annoying ex-classmate, who loved to tell me boxing was dead, took pictures of the weigh in. Again, this thing was huge.
Sadly, the fight itself wasn’t exactly Hagler-Hearns. With that being said, it was a better fight that it’s gone on to be remembered as. It was a Floyd Mayweather match, after all, and Mayweather was an absolute defensive master. While Pacquiao certainly had his moments, he couldn’t consistently break through Mayweather’s lauded style enough to earn the win. Looking back at the fight a full decade later, though, it’s clear that he real story of Mayweather-Pacquiao was the fight before the fight rater than the fight itself. For people had wanted the two superstars to get it on for at least half a decade before a contract was actually signed.
It was, to be frank, all too indicative of boxing at the time, where business truly trumped providing the fans and the sport with what it wanted and needed. I remember it being a late Friday afternoon when the contract was signed. I was on the second floor of a dark, empty building on campus, taking part in the media conference call now that the fight had finally and officially been signed for the second day of May. I asked if there might be a rematch in the future. “Ask me that question on May third,” an executive replied over the phone to the sounds of laughter. It was a funny response. So much work had gone in to getting through all the politics and bureaucracy that, at that moment, everyone involved wanted to breath a sigh of relief.
And so, on May 2nd of that year, what seemed like a hundred of us gathered in my dad’s house to watch a fight that ended up disappointing most. Still, I get nostalgic looking back. My dad has passed on since that night, and the family home has been sold. Half of those gathered in the house that evening may have difficulty recalling it today, but it brings back fond memories for me. Looking back, I’m glad to have been a small part of that much maligned hype. When all is said and done, it was worth remembering.
