After going on five years I honestly don't give a **** anymore -- why is boxing the only sport where it's acceptable for the top two competitors to just say "nah, we don't wanna fight" or "i'm only gonna fight him if we can draw a pint of blood a day for nine days in a row and give it back to him after we test it on the morning of the fight"?

Would we not all **** a brick if the AL and NL champions were all like "yeah, we're gonna pass on the world series this year, we know we're the best no need to prove it #TheMoneyTeam"?

**** steroids in baseball, this is some **** Congress needs to be investigating; I want hearing in both the House and the Senate to determine how much of a pussy Floyd Mayweather Jr. is and whether or not he does, in fact, drop the soap in the prison shower on purpose

Floyd only takes fights he knows he'll win; Pacman takes fights to prove that he's the best. 45-0 don't mean **** if it's all tomato cans

they have fought basically the same fighters the last 4 years.

If anything Pac has fought worse competition over the last few years with the exception of Bradley and maybe giving credit for fighting cotto more in his prime. The rest are pretty much the same fighters. I guess we still don't really know how good Canelo or Guerrero are.

Canelo was considered a bigger threat than Bradley was at the time.

Cotto at 145 vs. Cotto at 154 is a wash imo.

Definitely

I guess my after the fact analysis isn't really relevant when talking about whether someone was ducking someone when we only had so much info at the time

GGG over Stevenson for FOTY makes sense how?

not sure what list you are talking about

but if "the fight game" on hbo then it makes perfect sense in the sense that GGG is likely to make hbo much more money in the future

dat boxing hype machine

also i watched the FNF premiere between batholomy and mendez (130 pounds)

bartholomy beat the **** out of mendez but also benefited from a knockout in round 2 that was clearly after the bell so there will prob be a rematch even though i highly doubt it goes different next time around. mendez not in his class. bartholemy might be someone to watch out for i think he is ranked top 5 in that division. age 28 or 29

Besides Bellew (who was probably Rosado/Stevens quality, worse than Macklin, relative to each division), Stevenson fought 3 guys coming off losses (including one bum in Boone).

Granted, Stevenson was impressive, but if you were to make the case that GGG had a better year, you could say that Stevens, Macklin and Rosado were all coming off wins, and Macklin was a top 5 division guy at the time. Cloud and Dawson may have been better than Stevens or Rosado relatively, but Macklin was probably the best opponent either of these two guys fought.

I know that may be controversial, but it's easy to get caught up in the names that Cloud and Dawson carry. Yes, they were once great fighters, but clearly they've lost a lot (and you could see it before they fought Stevenson, they looked pretty poor vs 48 year old Hopkins and prime Ward, respectively).

I had GGG just behind Stevenson and Kovalev (I felt Kovalev fought a better opponent than Stevenson all year in Cleverly, and had a better performance in his last fight, but that Kovalev also fought some weaker guys too), but I thought that Floyd was clearly fighter of the year. Canelo was ranked in most people's top 10 P4P before that fight, some even had him in the top 5, and everyone had him clearly #1 at 154 lbs. Guererro was ranked really high too going into that fight. Floyd schooled them both and made them look like journeymen.

Manny Floyd stuff is funny. I think it's relevant though. I think Floyd and Manny are as good as they have ever been. People just put too much into lolbad judges and one big punch (plus Manny always struggled vs Marquez, lets not act like Marquez all of a sudden was dominating Manny in ways he never did... if anything Manny was having his best fight vs Marquez when he got KTFO).

And the Bradley decision, c'mon, Manny dominated that fight on his way to a clear decision (from anyone with eyes), crushed Rios with ease.

The fight is almost more interesting now because Manny is probably a smarter fighter after his knockout. And he still has tons of power. He beat up Rios badly and Rios isn't easy to knockout, can't fault Manny for not knocking out a guy that was basically covered up half the fight (like Rigo fight, which everyone blames Rigo for... yet his opponent who is supposedly aggro just covered up and threw historically low punches in that fight... don't blame Rigo for winning 120-108 shutout...).

And obviously Floyd is still as good as ever judging by his last two fights.

If Manny has serious money issues maybe it can happen, but really I think Arum is the biggest obstacle. Manny isn't going to hold TR's feet to the fire ever, over anything, so it's basically Arum vs Floyd in negotiations and that's a joke. Floyd has negotiated with everyone the same always (willing to give up any fight if the money isn't what he feels is market rate), and Arum tries to hardball him. Arum is probably "willing" to give up a bit and do 40-45% for Manny now, which is probably a pathetic overvalue market rate.

I don't think it matters much about Floyd's legacy, it's not like anyone with serious boxing knowledge would ever consider him GOAT anyways. It just pisses off current fans and is bad for boxing to not have a top 3-5 ever fight not happen. Window is closing, any fight now Floyd or Manny could really lose something and then it's just a Tyson Lewis type event (rather than Evander Tyson quality event).

Triple post, sorry.

So Manny's options are down to Bradley or Provodnikov on his next fight, with Bradley the odds on favorite.

I'd like to see Manny v Bradley, assuming it means Marquez vs Provodnikov happens too.

After that, TR should be screwed, but these guys all only fight 2x a year, so they can sell Marquez Bradley II no matter what (and they probably hope Provo and Manny win so that they can sell that too). TR may get through 2014 without the welterweight fans getting too pissed off over the cold war!

I think Manny is far from prime.
He is slower and less powerful.

He didn't look less powerful or slower vs Marquez. Vs Rios, I he didn't fight as strong, but his strategy maximized his winrate.

What is the point?
Pac have a bunch of interesting fights to make and there's no chance in hell GBP/Arum or HBO/Showtime will cooperate.

Waste of space even discussing it further.

This post is a much larger waste of space than most of what precedes it recently, and the rest of what precedes it is mainly the rest of your posts.

Ouch. Way harsh hawks.

Just to be clear, i have nothing bad to say about the quality of CicagoRy's posts on the matter. He is a solid poster and the last few posts are examples of that.

What i do think is a waste of time and space is talking about the same fight we've been waiting for the last 4 years to happen. It's just not going to happen and there's no need for us to get excited when nothing points towards it going down.

Waste of space in spoiler


losthawks can feel free to point it out when he disagrees with me. I don't remember interacting with him on this forum.

That was about 90% of my issue, really. That and I disagree about Pac having 'a bunch' of interesting fights to make - but that's a moot point for now anyway as it looks like he'll rematch Bradley in April, and I also think that's the best possible fight to make at this point.

Supposedly Pac's contract with TR runs through 2014, and I basically agree that any conversation is a non-starter unless/until he distances himself from Arum at that point. If he does... well, (still waiting for PBF v. Pac) obv..

You really think it wouldn't have a shot at beating Floyd vs Canelo or Floyd vs older DLH PPV records?

Granted, you have ammunition that Manny just did pretty poor PPV numbers, but if he beats Bradley next (who everyone seems to have top 3-4 P4P), I don't see how it isn't a megafight.

As for the discussion, what else is there to talk about? Big January in boxing, Pascal Bute and... Curtis Stevens? Gabe Rosado. Haha, it's basically the offseason for us, nothing else to discuss but potential matchups (including fantasy).

Specifically...

Lewis Tyson ran on a dual promoted PPV. This could be done that way. Or, HBO/Top Rank could be paid to let Manny take this fight on Showtime (since Floyd is by far the bigger star right now).

That's at least two potential ways it could happen without either network being screwed by their fighter.

For it to happen in late 2014 (the next available date for either fighter is fall 2014, their spring fights are all but finalized), maybe Arum would need to die. But Manny's contract is up end of 2014 I believe, so Arum doesn't need to be a factor for this fight to happen in early 2015.

The money isn't what it could've been, but it's still the #1 (by far) attraction in boxing vs a top attraction. Manny's value alone is a bit of a mystery right now, because he was huge and then had a rough outing (but was vs a lesser known Rios on a horrible undercard in Macau).

I still think it's a fight everyone wants to see, hell everyone keeps talking about it all over boxing forums and any time someone talks about boxing casual or not it comes up.

I really think it hinges on Manny beating Bradley, then it's still that megafight (sure, not as big as it could've been, but still could end up being #1 of all time).

I don't think fighters usually think this way. No top fighters really ever seem to show fear. It's really all about money and promoters when it comes to why guys don't face off when they should. Stevenson isn't afraid of Kovalev, he just wants to be paid. Ward isn't afraid of GGG, he just wants to be paid. Even Martinez probably isn't afraid of GGG (and if GGG's #s keep improving and Martinez keeps fighting, I wouldn't be shocked if he fought him).

Feel free to discuss it, I'm just saying you're setting yourselves up for disappointment again.

Too much prestige among the two (both networks and promoters).
The line have never been this clearly drawn.

It's not only about money at this point.


Nothing so far suggests Manny would ever leave Top Rank.

Mayweather will be 38 by that time anyway. It just does not seem like a 2.5+ million ppv.

Getting a 50/50 split in a 2 million ppv vs. getting 80% in a 1.3 million ppv. I don't know.

I would still love to see it. I just don't think it has much of a chance to materialize.

Mayweather certainly does. It's not about being afraid of physical harm but to protect an unbeaten record, not get beaten by a rival etc.
If not all criticism against him avoiding the toughest fights are absolutely unfounded.

Pacquiao would lose a lot of support in his country if he lost to Mayweather. His fans would take that loss very hard and personal.

GGG is the exception to the norm in todays boxing. Sadly.

If Floyd avoids the toughest fights, then virtually nobody besides Manny (and last few years not even him) can claim to fight as tough of opponents as him and everyone is just weak.

I mean, I get it, people (myself included) want top guys fighting each other NOW, not when it makes business sense. Coming up, people wanted Floyd fighting Cotto, he wanted too much money, it didn't happen for awhile. He still fought undefeated Hatton, De La Hoya (before Manny did), undefeated Canelo, top contender Guererro, early age ~30 Cotto, Castillo 2x, undefeated Corrales and plenty more.

But Stevenson could've fought Kovalev in November. Martinez could be coming back to GGG. Ward could've fought someone better than Rodriguez (same with Cotto). Floyd hasn't been taking any busy fights, he's been fighting tougher competition in each of his fights than anyone's name I've mentioned in this post in the last few years.

That said, Floyd is frustrating, because he does **** for his own monetary benefit and if people don't want to come to fight him on his terms he doesn't seem to care at all about anything else other than that. Basically, he doesn't prioritize the matchups the fans want, the matchups that are best for boxing or anything like that. In some sense in plays into his villain role most of his career (many want him to lose even more bc he hasn't fought Manny and doesn't fight guys right away all the time), but that's outweighed by the frustration that this causes fans.

Still, so goes it when the game state is setup the way boxing is. Commissions are not strong enough to make matchups happen, nor are they consistent when they do have influence. There's just no governing body that can really cause two guys to fight each other, unlike other major sports.

In other boxing news, Canelo vs Angulo is apparently happening. I was surprised, until I saw the quote about it possibly being a belt fight. Floyd will have to vacate his 154 title when he fights again at 147 (vs Con). So two guys coming off of losses get to fight for Mayweather's belt, go boxing!

Should be a good action fight though. A good bounceback opportunity for Canelo, get him a belt, maybe have Molina vs Lara unify belts and winner gets Canelo in his 2nd fight for 2014.

Meanwhile, I want to see Trout Kirkland, winner stays relevant.

Canelo/Angulo is basically two guys with solid chins who have absolutely no defense what so ever going against each other.

I like it. Guess Cotto will be facing Martinez then.

Canelo vs Angulo is a great fight. Angulo is probably underrated, he was very close to beating Lara and most people have him as number 1 at 154 now.