Floyd Mayweather, Shane Mosley and the Nature Boy

Looks like the contracts are now signed and Floyd Mayweather and Shane Mosley will meet May 1st in Las Vegas.

I don't have to tell you guys what a boost this bout is for a fight game still reeling from the dissolution of Mayweather-Pacquiao. This spring had promised a single collosal superfight for all the pound for pound marbles, but instead has delivered an interesting matchup between Manny Pacquiao and Josh Clottey, and a Mayweather-Mosley collision that hardcore fight fans have been wanting to see for a decade.

I'll take that.

For now.

But fight fans who are happy with this spring's matches won't be fully satisfied until we see the fight we all wanted in the first place, which could happen later this year but still might never go down.

I'm sure a lot of folks think that this whole mess was scripted from the beginning -- that Pacquiao and Mayweather had agreed to disagree precisely because it would allow them to use springtime title fights to build buzz for a gigantic clash in December. 

 

Intriguing theory, but one that ignores the reality that Mosley is only free for a May fight because his title defence against Andre Berto (originally scheduled for tonight) was cancelled after the earthquake in Haiti robbed Berto of several relatives and precious peace of mind. If Berto doesn't pull out of the Mosley fight, we might still be talking about Mayweather facing a puffed-up junior welterweight...although if that junior welterweight was Timothy Bradley I'd spend the time and money to watch.

Beyond that, setting up what amounts to a four-man welterweight tournament is a heck of a gamble for Mayweather and Pacquiao to take when each could have made $40 million doing the simple thing and facing each other.

And it's an even bigger risk when you consider that neither Mayweather nor Pacquiao has a simple stay-busy fight this spring.

Pacquiao's taking on a guy that woulda/coulda/shoulda knocked off Miguel Cotto last summer if he had fought all 12 rounds instead of hitting cruise control after nine.

And Mosley? All he did was enter the ring last January against the consensus top welterweight in the world -- Antonio Margarito -- and teach him a painful lesson in power boxing.

 

He's also guy who, despite past steroid use, quickly agreed to the same random testing that ultimately destroyed Mayweather-Pacquiao.

Mosely has explained to us in detail why he feels he's still the world's top welterweight, and if Mayweather beats him Floyd then vaults past Pacquiao into the division's throne.

Why?

Because of Ric Flair, that's why.

A win over Mosely would make Mayweather the man who beat the man (who beat the man). 

Not that a win over Sugar Shane is guaranteed.

Folks who have skewered Mayweather in the past for avoiding anyone who might threaten his unblemished record have to admit that Mosley doesn't fit that profile. Even at 38 he's a dangerous fighter (ask Margarito) with strength, speed and a stiff jab. He won't crumble if Mayweather starts winning rounds, and if nothing else has the skills and fighting spirit to bring the best out of a fighter who routinely outclasses challengers.

I'm not sure Mosley beats Mayweather, but unlike Juan Manuel Marquez in September he has a chance.

As does Clottey against Pacquiao.

I understand the logic behind delaying a big showdown to generate a bigger payday later, but I'm pretty sure that's not going on here, only because both guys have opted for stiff challenges this spring. If you think this tournament was really part of a grand plan, then you have to accept the possibilty that all this grandstanding could culminate in a Shane Mosley-Josh Clottey clash next autumn.

A great pairing, but are you prepared to drop 50 bucks to watch it? 

Will it push boxing back to the front pages of sports sections?

And is it the fight we've been asking for?

No, no, and no.

So let's just accept the Mayweather-Mosley bout for what it is -- not part of a plot to squeeze more money out of showdown with Pacquiao, but a great matchup on its own, and a rare chance to see how good Mayweather really is.

Or isn't.

Now that both guys have signed we can finally find out.

12 Rounds with Herschel Walker

Whether you think former NFL star  Herschel Walker's debut as a mixed martial arts fighter is a legitimate athletic pursuit or a shameless publicity stunt, you have to admire the man's ambition.

Saturday night the 47-year-old two-time Pro Bowler enters the octagon at Strikeforce Miami (Superchannel Canada, 10 p.m.) and faces 26-year-old Greg Nagy, a journeyman of so little stature that Strikeforce doesn't even have a bio of him on their website.

Walker doesn't fool himself about what he can accomplish in this sport, and makes clear that his ultimate goal isn't a showdown with Strikeforce heavyweight star Fedor Emilianenko. Instead, he wants to test himself one fight at a time for a couple of years, and then test himself one more time.

In the NFL.

Yes, after Walker leaves the octagon for good, he hopes to become the George Foreman of pro football.

And really, who are we to doubt him?

This man is the greatest running back in the history of the USFL. He has danced with the Fort Worth Ballet and pushed a bobsled. And he helped create the Dallas Cowboys dynasty of the early 1990s -- by leaving town. The Cowboys acquired, among others, Emmit Smith, Alvin Harper and Darren Woodson with the draft picks Minnesota sent them in exchange for Walker.

So in some ways, Walker is as powerful as Jerry Jones, and if he says MMA is one more challenge to conquer before returning to the NFL, I won't dismiss him with out at least tuning in first.

To hear the most accomplished athlete ever to cross over into mixed martial arts explain how he found the sport and how far he plans to take it, click on the MP3 below.

Download 12RdsWalker

Superfight looms this summer -- we hope

You might not know it by perusing the mainstream media (this blog included, sadly), but pro boxing has divisions beyond welterweight. 

Seriously.

And if you're as disappointed as I am about the dissolution of Mayweather-Pacquiao simply shift your focus to the featherweight division, because there's a superfight brewing at 126.

That would would be Cuba's Yuriorkis Gamboa against Puerto Rico's Juan Manuel Lopez, a pair of undefeated world champs whose jaw-dropping, show-stopping knockouts Saturday night proved there's plenty of action south of Manny Pacquiao.

In his first start since moving up from junior featherweight, Lopez broke down slick boxer Steven Luevano over six rounds, then flattened him in the seventh to claim the WBO featherweight crown and demonstrate that his power traveled with him to 126.

And in the co-main event Gamboa faced Rogers Mtagwa, who nearly defeated Lopez in October, and dispatched him with a deadly combination -- concussive power, plus the fastest hands in the game. That includes Pacquiao. Watch.

If that clip doesn't make you curious to see what Gamboa can do against a world class opponent, then you must not like boxing. And that's possible. I'm sure people visit this blog just to sneer at the sweet science.

And if that knockout doesn't make you at the very least want to see Gamboa again, then you probably don't like sports, period. A performance like that speaks to the very reason most of watch sports in the first place -- to see what can be achieved when top-notch talent meets meticulous preparation. 

Add in an opponent of equal pedigree, someone like, say, Lopez, and you have a bona fide mega fight. Without exaggeration, Gamboa-Lopez is about the most significant fight in boxing outside the welterweight division, pitting evenly-matched world champions, both undefeated and in their primes. That hasn't happened on this scale since Oscar de la Hoya met Felix "Tito" Trinidad in 1999.

*Yes, you could argue that Mayweather-Hatton fits those criteria, but I'm talking here about pick 'em fights. Unless you're a Manchester City fan, it was clear long before the fight started that Mayweather would school Hatton the way he did.*

But will it actually happen?

A fair question given the Mayweather-Pacquiao situation, which showed us that given enough hubris even done deals can be undone.

The good news here is that both men are promoted by Bob Arum, which eliminates the inter-promotional bickering that often prevents the fights fans want to see. Saturday's card was the second the two men had co-headlined, and afterward Arum told reporters he wanted to stage a springtime split-site double header with Lopez fighting in Puerto Rico and Gamboa in Miami.

Possible opponents for either man include WBA superchampion Chris John, and Panama's Celestino "Pelenchin" Caballero, the guy who lifted Steve Molitor's title and the spitter of the hottest verses in all of boxing.

He has also been calling out Lopez for months.

Arum seems determined to milk the buildup to this fight, letting each guy collect at least one more quality win before matching them in a late-summer showdown. 

A great idea, and one that could culminate in an a pay-per-view payoff unprecedented in the lower weight classes. With the right push from HBO this bout could transcend the boxing-mad Puerto Rican and Cuban enclaves we already know will support it in huge numbers.

But again, if we know anything about boxing, we know that nothing is guaranteed, except that damn near anything can happen to derail a fight we all want to see. 

Guys lose tuneup bouts (see Zab Judah vs. Carlo Baldomir).

Guys get injured in training (see Judah, Zab vs. Shane Mosley).

Guys go to jail (see Mike Tyson, repeatedly).

Not saying that any of those things will happen between Lopez and Gamboa, but we can never be sure that one of them won't. So while delaying this showdown while interest builds might be the most lucrative course to take, the part of me that has been burned by boxing before hopes Arum matches these two stars sooner rather than later.

Brock Lesnar's long road back

UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar describes him self as a carnivore who survived on a diet loaded with protein and devoid of just about everything else. Pass him some greens and he'll pass them right along, he says.  

That unbalanced diet fueled him through NCAA wrestling titles, WWE stardom and a UFC belt, and it helped him craft his 6-foot-3, 280-pound physique, hard as granite and outlandish even by pro sports standards.

It also bored a hole in Lesnar's intestine that siphoned his strength even as he 

manhandled the UFC's heavyweight division, and led to the abscess and infection that finally felled him in November.

Wednesday afternoon Lesnar and UFC president Dana White made the media rounds, pulling a morning spot on ESPN and an afternoon conference call with print and online reporters.

Primarily, they wanted to quell speculation about Lesnar's future: yes, is healthy and yes, he will fight again. This summer he plans to defend his UFC belt against the winner of a March 27 showdown between Frank Mir and Shane Carwin.

They also wanted to provide details about the aggressive intestinal infection that threatened Lesnar's career and life.

Well, certain details.

Neither man, for example, would reveal where in Canada Lesnar was when the condition first buckled him, only that he was in a cabin he owned somewhere north of the border when the lingering sickness finally overtook him, and he collapsed with a 104-degree fever. He disclosed that the unidentified Canadian hospital was full of unhelpful doctors and malfunctioning equipment, and that he feared he would die that night if his wife didn't break him out and drive him at high speed to a hospital in Bismarck, N.D.

There, he learned that his collapse in Canada was just the latest and most severe manifestation of diverticulosis, which had stalked him for months, developing from a less severe intestinal condition. 

Lesnar says the size of the hole in his gut told doctors that it had been growing for at least a year, and thinking back, a host of nagging health problems -- fatigue, flu symptoms, occasional stomach pain -- suddenly made more sense.

He had been feeling them for months, but instead of listening to his body he kept grinding -- through a second round TKO of Randy Couture to win the UFC heavyweight crown, then through Mir to defend it and avenge an earlier loss.

The fatigue weighed more heavily on him this autumn as he trained for a Nov. 21 title defence against Carwin, forcing him to take days off training. When those days bled into entire weeks he visited a doctor and was diagnosed with mononucleosis, prompting him to call off the Carwin bout. 

But instead of resting he headed to Canada in mid-November to hunt, and on that trip his symptoms reached a critical mass, leading him eventually to that hospital bed in Bismarck, where doctors told him that in about three months, once the inflammation in his colon subsided he would need surgery to remove part of it. That operation would mean a colostomy bag, retirement from the ring and a drastically altered life.

Tough news to take for an alpha male who (rightly) considers himself one of the toughest men on the planet.

"I'm a young guy. These things aren't supposed to happen," Lesnar said. "When you think you're doing all the right things and something like this happens, obviously you're not. So...I have to make some changes."

In the meantime doctors sunk a six-inch needle into Lesnar's gut and pulled out 14 cubic centimetres of fluid, then pumped in antibiotics while feeding him intravenously. 

Over 11 days in hospital Lesnar shed 40 pounds -- emerging at 248 -- but gained confidence that he could avoid career-ending surgery when he began eating solid food again.

But the disease had sapped his legendary strength, and the fighter known for dwarfing the UFC's biggest athletes, and rag-dolling some of the strongest men in mixed martial arts now found himself wheezing after walking from the bedroom to the bathroom.

When he sought a second opinion at the Mayo Clinic in Minneapolis, doctors backed up the diagnosis in Bismarck and told him to expect surgery in three months.

Rather than wait for a operation that would surely end his career, Lesnar decided to supplement prescription antibiotics with naturopathic medicine and an overhauled diet that now included plenty of fiber and vegetables, and as the weeks passed his energy returned.

In the interim he remained quiet about his recovery, and White issued cryptic dispatches hinting that Lesnar may indeed have to retire.

But by late December Lesnar had resumed light workouts and Jan. 5 he underwent a colonoscopy that revealed that he had healed.

Completely.

Doctors couldn't find a trace of the condition that toppled him in November, or a reason why he recovered so thoroughly in just six weeks.

"The doctor said 'I don't know what you're doing (but keep doing it and we'll never have to see you again,'" Lesnar said. "That's my plan.'

A second opinion yielded a second clean bill of health, and a second chance at a career -- and a life --Lesnar once saw vanishing before him. With his wounds fully healed Lesnar maintains the only lingering effect from the his sickness is a renewed commitment to nutrition.

His life as an omnivore has begun.

"Why would I go back to my old ways?" he said. "I don't want to be back in that position ever again. I'm donig change for the better, not for the worse."

The ordeal cost Lesnar a little weight, and Wednesday said he was back up to 273 pounds.

But he retains his legendary penchant for talking trash.

During the 30-minute conference call he launched verbal shots at public health care:

"I'm not a believer in socialism and I don't agree with what's going on.We need some restructuring here but we don't need socialistic health care in America

At Mir, who keeps calling him out:

"Frank Mir is a stalker. It's been a while since I had a stalker, but we'll take care of that..."

And at any other UFC heavyweight he might face:

"I'll sharpen my skills. I'll be prepared for either one of those guys. If its (Antonio) Nogueira, if it's (Cain) Velazquez. I know one thing. All them guys are sh****ng their pants right now."

A scary thought for any UFC fighter north of 205 pounds to consider:

Lesnar said Wednesday that his damaged intestinal lining kept his digestive system working at less than 80 percent efficiency, meaning his body was hemorrhaging nutrients from an already substandard diet, even as he flattened the UFC's best heavyweights.

Imagine how he'll perform now that he has patched the hole in his gas tank and has switched over to premium fuel.

Except we won't have to imagine how he'll look this summer; we'll see it for ourselves.

Lesnar won't have to ponder life without fighting; he resumes serious training Thursday morning.

And most importantly his family won't have to worry about life without Lesnar.

Latest on Lesnar

Here's Lesnar on ESPN, telling his story.

More details after this afternoon's conference.

Lesnar Returns?

 After two months of silence, UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar will clarify his status and octagon today. 

Momentarily he will appear on ESPN's SportsCenter to explain the mysterious intestinal infection that nearly killed him, and to address speculation about whether he will fight again. You might remember that Lesnar was hunting in Manitoba when the intestinal bug first felled him in mid November, and making those close to him wonder whether he would even survive, much less fight again.

This morning he tells his story to ESPN, and this afternoon he'll hold a conference call alongside UFC president Dana White, to let us all know what's next for Lesnar.

As soon as they update me, I'll update you.

Stay tuned.

Fighting Words Video

...dropped in at Cabbagetown Gym today, to discuss Brock Lesnar and Sugar Shane Mosley.

Take a look.

12 Rounds with Shane Mosley

New feature alert: 12 Rounds, the first in a recurring series in which we spend some quality time with some of the biggest names in the fight game, then post the MP3 so you guys can hear them speak for themselves.

The first man up is the odd man out -- WBA Welterweight champ Shane Mosley.

 

Two and a half weeks ahead of his title unification fight against the undefeated Andre Berto, Sugar Shane maintains that neither Manny Pacquiao nor Floyd Mayweather can claim to be the best fighter in the world until one of them beats the best fighter in the welterweight division.

That would be Mosley.

And he has a point.

Last January Mosley thrashed Antonio Margarito, who until then had ruled the welterweight division with a concrete fist.

But that convincing win didn't set Mosley, now 38, up for a superfight with Pacquiao or Mayweather.

Instead, it led to a year on the sidelines, during which he openly campaigned for a Pacquiao showdown, Kanye Wested Mayweather's post fight interview, and wound up settling for a bout with Berto.

Naturally, he's not happy with the stubbornness that scuttled the Pacquaio-Mayweather fight and has a simple solution for two fighters he feels are avoiding him.

"If they don't want to fight each other, the next guy to fight for the big money is Shane," he said. "They're trying to wait for me to get old. I'm not getting old. I'm ready to go."

And according to the L.A. Times, Mayweather might be ready too.

But first Mosley has to deal with Berto, and to hear him discuss that bout as well as his thoughts on Mayweather, Pacquiao and Bob Arum, click the link below.

Shane_Mosley (1)

Set your PVRs.....

...For Pacquiao-Clottey.

And if we're lucky, we might get Mayweather-Malignaggi in the same month.

What a wondrous time to be a fight fan.

Now, as of Friday Pacquiao's trainer, Freddie Roach conceded that the door hadn't completely closed on a Mayweather matchup but he didn't sound like he wanted to spend much more time thinking about it, either.

So unless something dramatic happens Monday, Pacquiao's moving with all deliberate speed toward a showdown with Clottey, who couldn't handle the guy Pacquiao dismantled in November.

Again, you're forgiven if you can't muster much excitement over this one. 

I realize that Pacquiao's most rabid fans would pay 50 bucks to watch him fight a traffic ticket, but the rest of us need a more compelling reason to part with that type of pay-per-view money. A bout with Clottey -- who could have had this fight last November if he could have closed the show against Cotto -- doesn't provide it. As a peace offering to fans HBO needs to keep this bout on its cable network.

 

But at least Clottey's a welterweight -- and a strong one. He might not win, but he'll make Pacquaio work.

What can Malignaggi do against Mayweather except run, take punches and crumble in the late rounds?

Exactly.

If HBO airs Pacquiao-Clottey on semi-free TV, then they need to offer a rebate to any subscriber who watches Mayweather-Malignaggi.

While each of these fighters moves on toward less lucrative, less interesting and less risky fights, folks are still trying to figure out just who is responsible for the short-circuiting the biggest boxing event of a generation.

A lot of commenters on the last post felt I tried too hard to vindicate Mayweather and place blame for the failed fight on Pacquiao.

Not true.

I'm simply aware that, as my friend Will Strickland says, there are two sides to every story, and three when you include the truth. And the truth here is that both parties could have done more to make this fight happen.

I never intended to let Mayweather off the hook. I didn't have to because Pacquiao already did it.

Mayweather's win over Oscar de la Hoya was a genuine gamble, but like everyone else I've noticed that Mayweather has been *ahem* very carefully matched since moving up to 147 pounds four years ago. It's a matter of public record that Zab Judah is the biggest welterweight name on Money May's resume. 

 

Would have loved to see Mayweather against Shane Mosley, Antonio Margarito or Miguel Cotto, but strangely, none of those fights happened.

And the drug testing hurdle he erected in front of Pacquiao, combined with this bizarre desire to face a non-factor like Paulie Malignaggi tell me that Mayweather is more concerned with preserving his perfect record than defending it. 

So if, as Pacquaio's camp insists, Mayweather called for extra blood tests because he hoped to force a cancellation (thereby avoiding an epic beating and his first pro loss), I can understand how they reached that conclusion.

Still can't understand Team Pacquiao's reaction to it.

As this drug test drama has unfolded, Team Pacquiao and their fans have protested that no fighter should be able to dictate those kinds of terms to another, and that Pacquiao isn't obligated to roll over and give Mayweather whatever he wants.

Point taken.

But if you believe that Mayweather is petrified and desperately wants a back door out of the fight, why give it to him? Instead of Mayweather dictating the terms on which the fight will happen, he's dictating the terms on which it won't happen, and Pacquiao's team allowed him to do it.

Is that any better for the fighters and their fans?

Nope.

So if you're Pacquiao, why not say yes to the test?

 If you really think Mayweather has a sinister plan to avoid facing you, and you realize that this plan only works if you say no to extra drug testing, just say yes.

Say, "Yes, you can test me up to 14 days out from the fight, and no you're not getting out of this beating," then sign the contract and watch Mayweather squirm once he realizes his luck has run out.

Say yes and seize a clear victory in the psychological sparring that precedes every big bout. Imagine what it does to your opponent's mind when he sees that the one thing that was supposed to spook you -- extra blood testing -- doesn't even slow you down.

Say yes, and if Mayweather still balks you've won the public relations war, exposed the extra drug testing as a smoke screen, and made clear exactly who spoiled the fight of the century.

Instead, Pacquiao said no, leaving plenty of questions about exactly what went wrong, leaving the sporting public with a pair of bouts nobody asked for, and leaving Mayweather as the only person who got what he wanted in the end.

If a way out was really what he wanted.

Mayweather-Pacquiao: He said, he said

So the fight of the century is off, and it's all Floyd Mayweather's fault.

Like the coward Bob Arum says he is, Mayweather rejected a reasonable drug testing compromise because he's afraid to risk his undefeated record against a buzzsaw like Manny Pacquiao.

 

Wait, no.

The fight of the century is off, and it's all Manny Pacquiao's fault.

Like the coward team Mayweather says he is, Pacquiao rejected a reasonable drug testing compromise because he's afraid of either testing positive or confronting the only other guy who can challenge for the pound-for-pound crown.

 

These are two widely divergent accounts of how final negotiations for this proposed superfight went down, so whose fault is it, anyway?

At this point, who cares?

What matters is that the most important, most intriguing and most lucrative boxing match of a generation now looks like it won't happen, disappointing both hardcore and casual fans, and dealing a body blow to a sport that had just climbed off the canvas.

A couple of posts ago a commenter questioned why we were still even discussing the sweet science, explaining that he was a former boxing fan who tuned away from the sport because for too many years the best fighters avoided each other. 

I'm sure there are thousands of other fans like him, guys who tuned out because they grew tired of waiting for a rematch between Roy Jones and Bernard Hopkins, or for a pair of heavyweights worth watching, or for Mayweather to confront someone who could test the limits of his mind-boggling skill.

This pound-for-pound showdown between the two biggest names in the sport was supposed to draw those fans back to the boxing flock, while rewarding the hardcore for standing by the sport, and proving to the world that the inter-promotional bickering that had derailed boxing in the past was just that -- the past.

Turns out it's still the present, and the gifts Team Pacquiao and Team Mayweather have given sports fans are the familiar feelings that always accompany superfights that don't happen. 

The shattering of a fragile trust as boxing fans feel duped for believing the fight could actually take place. 

The awkward attempts to explain to non-boxing fans that the sport really isn't as crooked as it seems.

The disappointment of another failed negotiation hardening in to indifference toward fighters and promoters who ignore fans' demands.

Really, does anyone care who these two will face as alternatives?

Will the folks who were ready to drop  $50 on a Pacquiao-Mayweather pay-per-view even spend an hour watching either guy take on Paulie Malignaggi or Yuri Foreman or Josh Clottey?

Unless you're a blood relative or the worst kind of boxing addict, the answer is probably no.

These two need to realize that if they want to smash pay-per-view records and vault themselves from mere Hall of Famers to Sugar Ray Robinson-level legends they need each other. Muhammad Ali needed Joe Frazier, Ray Leonard needed Thomas Hearns and Floyd Mayweather needs Manny Pacquiao (and vice-versa).

Amid the duelling accusations it's tough to discern which fighter hasn't figured it out yet, but if Mayweather truly didn't want this fight he should have stayed retired. Fans could live with the Juan Manuel Marquez mismatch as a Pacquiao tuneup, but nobody wants to see him fight Saul Alvarez or Rick Ross.

And if Pacquiao really isn't scared of Mayweather or drug testing he needs to prove it and start acting like a fighter.

Now, any judgement of a fighter's character comes with a huge qualifier, since anyone who laces on gloves and fights for a living displays a level of courage people like me will never comprehend, much less possess.

Nevertheless, a fighter doesn't run to his lawyer when someone defames him, the way Pacquiao did last week.

You think Muhammad Ali's relentless racial taunts didn't defame Joe Frazier?

Labeling Frazier and Uncle Tom was a deliberate (and successful) attempt to demean him among African-American fans. 

And calling him a gorilla was the lowest form of race-baiting -- one black man dehumanizing another for white people's entertainment -- and on the scale of public insults outranks by far Floyd Mayweather Sr.'s ramblings about steroids.

But Frazier didn't file a lawsuit, or demand an apology as a condition for accepting a fight. He settled this defamation claim where a fighter should -- in the ring.

The bigger point here is that when record amounts of money and Hall of Fame legacies are at stake, great fighters make sure great fights happen, regardless of details, purse splits, insults and gamesmanship. And if Mayweather and Pacquiao can't get over themselves and get into the ring this spring, the entire sport suffers.

Some of my hardcore boxing fan friends are more patient than I am, pointing out that Ray Leonard and Marvelous Marvin Hagler ignored each other for half a decade before finally meeting in 1987.

The difference here is that even while Leonard was retired, boxing had a much larger market share than it does now, and Hagler had a few superfights to keep folks interested until Leonard finally came back to the ring. 

Boxing is healthier now than it was in, say, 2005, but still doesn't have much to offer the mainstream if Mayweather-Pacquiao falls through.

And Hagler and Leonard were both in their 20s when they started stalling on their showdown, and in their early 30s when they finally fought, past their primes for sure but still young enough to make an exciting fight.

Mayweather and Pacquiao, meanwhile, are both in their early 30s already and can't afford to delay this fight indefinitely. Wait five years and all you offer fans is a "superfight" between two old guys. That won't fly in the ring or in the octagon, and it's not what the public wants or deserves.

But the last few weeks have taught us that this isn't about public demand or the health of the sport. It's about two fighters with huge egos and who would rather win at the negotiating table than in the ring.