RUMORED PAY PER VIEW COST CIRCA $100 BUCKS
Floyd Mayweather- Manny Pacquiao
Beijing, China– Well financially it is. No one can dispute that. Most analysts predict the pay per view sales and ticket revenue to gross around $400 million. But it is the people’s excitement over a bout, not its projected sales, that transform it from a mere boxing match into an event. And although the long anticipated bout between ‘pound for pound’ kings Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao has certainly set the world in a buzz, the fighters do not represent something larger than themselves or the sport.
Jack “Long Dong” Johnson
MAYWEATHER THE HEEL & PACQUIAO THE BABYFACE
Pacquiao is a deific figure in the Philippines, but there aren’t any large social issues lingering in the backdrop to this bout. The excitement over this matchup is fueled by people’s desire to find out who the best in the world is and with good reason.
SOME HEAVYWEIGHT FIGHTS MEANT MORE THAN MONEY
However, the biggest and most significant fights in history had two things in common. For one, they involved the three greatest Heavyweights of all time which is worth noting since the Heavyweight division has long been the grand stage of the Sweet Science. Secondly, and of more importance, the participants in each of the bouts represented sides of controversial global issues that Mayweather and Pacquiao never will.
JACK JOHNSON LIKE NFL’S MARSHAWN LYNCH BUT IN 1900
The earliest example of this is when Jack Johnson, the first African-American heavyweight champion, defended his belt against Jim Jeffries, the former long-reigning champ who had retired undefeated and was goaded out of retirement as America’s first “Great White Hope” by an American public that couldn’t stand the sight of a black man as king of the squared circle much like some still do the guy residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. As for the comparison to the Seattle Seahawks running back, “JJ” used to display his ample girth under tight shorts a lot while Lynch just grabs his crotch.
HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE CHANGE BROUGHT ABOUT (MORE) LYNCHING
This was back when boxing was still a major sport, before it had taken a backseat with horse racing to basketball, football and baseball. On American Independence Day (July 4) 1910, over 100,000 people showed up in Reno, Nevada to watch Johnson slowly and sadistically punish Jeffries, who had lost like 80 lbs. prepping for the fight. After the bout was stopped, race riots erupted across the nation. No matter the outcome on May 2nd, one can all but guarantee a similar reaction will not occur once Mayweather and Pacquiao settle their issues inside the ring. Although the Philippines is sure to have extreme levels of mourning or celebration unmatched in America given Pacquiao’s larger than life status in his nation.
JOE LOUIS FIRST ACCEPTED “COLORED” CHAMP
Joe Louis & Fidel Castro
28 years after Johnson-Jeffries, Joe Louis defended his heavyweight championship in a rematch where Max Schmeling won by TKO 12. The stakes had raised dramatically since their first encounter as Louis had lifted the title from James “Cinderella Man” Braddock the year before. On a larger scale, the tensions of World War II had risen.
HITLER PUT SCHMELING IN “BAD SPOT”
Adolf Hitler personally congratulated Schmeling after his initial victory and created a documentary around his fighter which celebrated the first bout as a victory for Germany and the supreme white being Across the pond in the build up to the second go, Joe Louis visited the White House to receive personal words of encouragement from President Franklin Roosevelt. “I knew the whole damn country was depending on me,” Louis said in a 1976 biography.
WORLD WAS DIVIDED OVER SCHMELING-LOUIS
Over 70,000 fans filled NY’s Yankee Stadium to watch as the rest of the world listened intently on the radio. Louis avenged his earlier loss with a KO 1, scoring a symbolic victory for his country in the growing feud with Nazi Germany. And just like that, a black man was hailed as a hero, albeit with a wink in many parts of in the land and times of Jim Crow.
ALI-FRAZIER WAS “THE FIGHT” PERIOD
Finally, we return to March 8, 1971 when two undefeated superstars with legitimate claims to the heavyweight crown, Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali met to lay resolve the issue of who was the real champion of the division. That being said, Joe and Muhammad were representing more than themselves.
POLITICS MADE THE FIGHT MORE THAN A FIGHT
Ali, Don King, Frazier 1975
Muhammad Ali was stripped of his title in 1967 after refusing to enter the US Army via the draft and was forced into exile from the sport he would become the face of. He had become outspokenly critical of America’s policies regarding not only Vietnam but also its internal racial and socioeconomic issues. He was also a full-fledged member of the Nation of Islam.
RING MAGAZINE NEVER STRIPPED ALI
Joe Frazier gained the WBA belt Ali felt was his by knocking out Jimmy Ellis who won the title in a tournament after it was stripped from “The Greatest.” When “Smokin” Joe signed the contract to face a fellow American Olympic Gold medalist, he was unfairly viewed as the antithesis of everything Ali stood for while Ali became the darling of progressive America. A star studded crowd of over 20,000 packed Madison Square Garden to watch Frazier drop and outpoint Ali in an epic slugfest that exceeded its hype.
MAY THE BEST MAN WIN
Mayweather-Pacquiao, for all its hype and excitement, lacks the political, social, and cultural climate to make it the “biggest” or “most significant” fight of all time. Don’t get me wrong, I’m just as excited about this bout as anyone. It’s arguably the biggest fight of the last 40 years and deserves to be celebrated as such. But let’s not make it something it isn’t.
Jason B. Nava
HISTORIAN PUTS MAYWEATHER-PACQUIAO IN PLACE