Mayweather and Pacquiao! Finally!

Any sports fan with a pulse has to find it quickening at the news that Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather have finally agreed to throw down for the pound-for-pound crown.

Tough to overstate the magnitude of this one but it's easily the biggest fight of the decade and probably bigger than any fight that took place in the 90s too. It's a clash between two first-ballot hall-of-famers who are still near the top of their games, and a mega-event that figures to smash the pay-per-view records Mayweather set in his 2007 showdown with Oscar De La Hoya.

It's also compelling evidence of something I and a lot of boxing purists have maintained since the UFC emerged as a dominant force on the combat sports scene.

Boxing ain't dead.

In 2007 Mayweather's 12-round decision win over De La Hoya was supposed to herald the end of boxing's run as a mainstream sport. After that fight, the UFC was supposed to crowd the sweet science out of the collective sports consciousness.

Purists and casual fans alike had grown tired of the proliferation of titles that cheapened the meaning of each belt, and of inter-promoter bickering that kept the best fighters from clashing. After Mayweather and De La Hoya fought we were supposed to turn away from all that drama and tune into the brutal simplicity of the UFC, where Dana White makes sure the best always fight the best (as long as the best are under contract).

But instead of getting lost, boxing got a clue. Great fights started happening regardless of who held what belt. Miguel Cotto fought Shane Mosely, then Antonio Margarito. Mayweather flattened Ricky Hatton and Pacquiao pounded his way through three weight classes.

Suddenly sports fans were paying attention.

Instead signalling boxing's death, Mayweather-De La Hoya led to boxing's re-birth on the mainstream sports scene, of which Pacquiao's ascent from Filipino cult hero to stateside Nike pitchman is a stunning example.

But for Pacquiao, conquering Madison Ave. is one thing; conquering Mayweather is something else.

Since moving up from lightweight Pacquiao has dismantled a drained De La Hoya, destroyed an outgunned Hatton, and plastered a shellshocked Cotto. He has looked indestructible lately, but against Mayweather we'll see how he stacks up against a master boxer who, unlike his last three opponents, won't lead with his chin.

Mayweather, meanwhile, finally gets to silence critics who have needled him for years about avoiding the welterweight division's best. The undefeated Mayweather claims to be the greatest fighter since the original Sugar Ray, but will have to change his story if he can't get past Pacquiao.

Mayweather thinks he will

And I agree with him -- to a point.

I don't think anyone makes "easy work" of Pacquiao because Pacquiao over the last year has proven that he's just that good.

But Mayweather wins because he's that much better. He's a defensive master and the smartest fighter of his generation, a brilliant counterpuncher who is stronger than most people give him credit for. 

Will Pacquiao land some shots?

Of course he will. But no way he lands like he did in his last three fights. Mayweather's much too elusive. And he won't run the way Cotto did when Pacquiao found some success, nor will he settle in and wait for the end like De La Hoya did when he figured out Pac-man was actually pretty damn good. Instead he'll stalk behind a stiff jab, belt Pacquiao to the body and solve any puzzle the Pac-man presents him.

I should warn you that my predictions are not legally binding, and if you jet to Vegas and bet the house based on what you read here, neither I nor the Star are responsible for your losses. Besides, a lot can change in the three months leading up to fight night.

But my prediction won't.

If you disagree, feel free to let me know.

On MMA — The latest from the commission

So the game of phone tag with the Ontario Athletics Commission is over. One of chairman Ken Hayashi's assistants left me a voicemail on Thursday outlining the commission's stance on MMA in light of new legislation in Massachusetts legalizing the sport.

Basically, it's the same as the their stance before the new law in Massachusetts. Same as it's been for as long as anyone can remember.

Nothing has changed, and nobody at the commission is planning any changes.

I know it's not the news most local MMA fans want to hear, and I understand there's a lot of bitterness toward Hayashi in Ontario's mixed martial arts community. He's certainly a convenient target, and since he's the head of the commission that runs combat sports (correction, combat "sport") in this province it's easy to conclude that the only thing standing between Ontario and MMA is his recalcitrant attitude.

But, as Jason Abelson points out in a comment on a previous post, this issue probably goes far beyond what any one man thinks about the sport. 

Even if Marc Ratner et al can convince Hayashi that octagons are much safer than boxing rings (and they probably are — shorter fights and fewer blows to the head), it wouldn't, as Jason points out, change the number of qualified officials in the province. Nor does it boost the number of commission staffers available to oversee MMA events.

Two summers ago the commission forced Hennessey Sports to cancel a scheduled boxing show at Casino Niagara because the event fell only eight days before Steve Moltior's title defence at Casino Rama. 

The rationale?

The short-staffed commission couldn't handle two big events so close together, so one show had to go.

“We’ve never had two major dates scheduled so close together before. We generally have maybe four or five shows a year," Hayashi told thefightnetwork.com in April 2007. "So the commission simply can’t handle all the demands that these two shows will entail.”

If the current annual workload — quarterly shows at Rama plus a handful of other events — stresses the commission to its limit, how would it react to a sudden proliferation of MMA events? Not very well if the summer of 2007 is a useful indicator.

So yes, a sold-out UFC show at the Air Canada Centre would generate a ton of cash for the province. But it might never happen unless some money first goes into expanding the athletic commission's staff.

Them's Fighting Words

A quick note to welcome you to "Fighting Words," the Star's combat sports blog, a space I hope will become your favourite place to find news, analysis and -- most importantly -- discussion revolving around boxing and mixed martial arts.

With a UFC pay per view scheduled for next Saturday, and major boxing titles on the line this weekend and next, December figures to be a hectic month for both sports, and thus a busy time on this blog.

So check in frequently and comment often. 

Join me in thanking my good friend and world-class Jim Kirikakis for coming up with the blog's title (yes one of the brains behind "Rich Bride, Poor Bride" is a huge fight fan).

You can watch the first installment the the Fighting Words video series here.

And scroll down. I've already posted a few items to get you started...

Roy Jones: Chin dented, legacy intact

If you were up well before the sun Wednesday morning (I was), and if you could find a functioning live stream (I couldn't), then you might have seen Roy Jones Jr's career come to an ugly end against Australian cruiserweight Danny Green.

And if you missed it live (like I did), or simply slept through it (like sensible folks), then you might have caught it on YouTube.

All of it.

Didn't take long.

Yeah. Ouch.

An impressive victory for Green, and though he didn't conquer "the U.S. and the world," like the (slightly biased) Australian commentators said he did, at least proved he's capable of squashing a washed-up future hall-of-famer. 

And a crushing loss for 40-year-old Jones, who had viewed this fight as a tuneup for a first-quarter 2010 rematch with 45-year-old Bernard Hopkins. (No, boxing hasn't started a seniors' tour. These two have been putting off a rematch since 1993). Instead, Green further exposed him as an aging fighter with dwindling skills and a glass ear.

But let's understand one thing:

This loss does nothing to tarnish Jones' legacy.

Nothing.

Does Jones' precipitous decline provide an object lesson for fighters thinking about sticking around too long?

Of course it does.

I would have loved to see him retire after schooling John Ruiz to claim the heavyweight title in 2003, or even after gutting out a 12-round decision over Antonio Tarver in his next fight. 

Instead, he fought on, racking up five losses in his final 10 bouts.

But Jones' final 10 fights -- which include savage knockouts by Tarver, Glen Johnson and now Green -- won't set his legacy. Unless we're prepared to say Muhammad Ali is less of a legend for having lost to Trevor Berbick, or that Ray Leonard's legacy lost lustre when Hector Camacho defeated him in 1997, we can't say Roy Jones' late career failures diminish his greatness.

In thinking about how far Jones has fallen we shouldn't forget how high he climbed.

This, after all, is the fighter whose three-round beatdown of Park Si-Hun in the 1988 Olympics, and subsequent robbery by corrupt judges, prompted amateur boxing to overhaul its entire scoring system.

This is also a blindingly fast master of improvisation. He had the best left hook in the game, and enough power in his right to stop world-class opponents with a single shot, either to the body...

or to the head...

Granted, he's the worst rapper since Floyd Mayweather, but he's also a four-division champ who started his career with 49 wins and a single highly disputed loss -- one he avenged in a manner both brilliant and brutal.

So when I look back on Roy Jones' career -- which I pray has finally ended -- I'll think about the titles and the speed, the spectacular knockouts and the shuttling between light-heavy and heavyweight to claim and defend titles. That type of greatness is tough not to remember.

And if you think he's anything other than an all-time elite and first-ballot hall-of-famer, then he you're the folks he was talking about in that nearly unlistenable hip-hop track.

Y'all musta forgot.

 

MMAssachusetts green lights the UFC; Ontario still waiting

One major jurisdiction down, two more to go.

A couple days back Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick signed a bill allowing the athletic commission to sanction mixed martial arts events in the Bay State and toppling a huge barrier that had stood between Ultimate Fighting Championship and unconditional mainstream acceptance. After all, how can you argue that mixed martial arts, and the UFC in particular, deserves recognition alongside sports like football and baseball when it's still illegal in certain states (and one big province)?

Truthfully, you can't, but Monday's bill-signing nudges the UFC a little further from the fringe and sends a strong signal to other holdout jurisdictions  that almost-anything-goes fighting is actually worth embracing.

UFC president and Boston native Dana White acknowledged as much on his twitter page just after the bill became law.

"Think about where we started" he wrote. "One state to go then Ontario!!!"

Actually, Monday's ruling means that MMA is legal in 42 of the 48 states that have athletic commissions, but of the six commissions still outlawing the sport, only one truly counts.

New York.

And as far as Ontario is concerned, the UFC has been lobbying here since 2006, shortly after they hired former Nevada Athletic Commission head Marc Ratner and gave him the task of legalizing MMA in every major jurisdiction on the continent.

But changing minds in Ontario hasn't been easy, a struggle the Star addressed recently in a front page story.

As long as I've been covering sports at the Star, the folks at the provincial athletic commission have told me that MMA is illegal here because it violates Section 83 of the Criminal Code, which prohibits unsanctioned prize fights. As a result, anyone hosting anything resembling an MMA event in Ontario could go to jail and pays a fine.

But the Criminal Code appears to allow provinces to decide which types of fighting to sanction, which would explain why MMA is legal in places like Quebec. So if Ontario would simply sanction MMA events, they would no longer be illegal here.

Georges St. Pierre smashes Matt Serra's face at UFC 83 in Montreal, where professional MMA won't land you in jail.

Still playing phone tag with Ontario athletics commissioner Ken Hayashi regarding Monday's developments, but as recently as 2007 he hadn't budged from his assertion that MMA was inherently illegal in this province.

So what will it take to sway the government?

Might be the money.

The province currently collects two percent of the gate revenue from boxing events, which doesn't sound like much but adds up when you consider that the live gate at UFC events routinely exceeds $3 million (U.S.). Accoding to White, last November's showdown between Randy Couture and Brock Lesnar grossed $4.8 million (U.S.) in ticket sales. When lobbying provincial officials earlier this year Ratner projected that UFC events in Ontario could generate $4 million in tax revenue annually.

Any event making that many dollars has to make sense for a cash-strapped provincial government, one that wants to impose highly unpopular tax on its residents. 

And any provincial official who met with Ratner has to be thinking hard about opening the province's coffers to that kind of cash.

I mean, wouldn't you rather have UFC than HST?