Mayweather vs. Pacquiao Fight Is Finally Made
PHILADELPHIA, PA (CBS) — The biggest fight in boxing history, the epic match up that's been years in the making, will finally take place. Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather will get into the ring—both parties finally agreed—on May 2 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Mayweather announced the fight on Friday.
The megafight will carry a Super Bowl atmosphere to what will be the most watched fight in boxing history.
All the boxes had been checked for the mother of all fights between Pacquiao and Mayweather seemingly weeks ago for the May 2 date, at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. The missing piece was Mayweather's signature on the contract for a fight that will shatter the 2.4-million pay-per-view record buys garnered by Mayweather and Oscar De La Hoya in 2007.
It's a fight Mayweather had to make.
Mayweather (47-0, 26 KOs) will turn 38 on February 24. He's been this generation's best fighter and the face of boxing for the last decade. If he didn't make the fight now, chances are, the fight may have never been made. A month ago Top Rank, Pacquiao's pomoter, confirmed everything that Mayweather had wanted, including the 60-40 split favoring Mayweather, the
Bob Arum, Top Rank's chairman, admitted negotiations had been ongoing the last few months through CBS CEO Leslie Moonves, who signed a six-fight with Mayweather to appear on Showtime. The drug-testing protocol, which originally negated the possibility of a Mayweather-Pacquiao fight in 2009, has been agreed on by Pacquiao, using the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency that has tested all fighters on Mayweather shows.
What's more is neither Pacquiao (57-5-2, 38 KOs) nor Mayweather were getting any younger. The time to move was now. Pacquiao will turn 37 on December 17. But there is plenty of wear on the Filipino dynamos tires.Since talk of the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight in 2009, "Pac-Man" has suffered two defeats, one a dubious upset to Tim Bradley, the other a sixth-round TKO to Juan Manual Marquez in December 2012, with Pacquiao ahead on all three scorecards.
Mayweather will be heavily favored. The fight is six years beyond its peak sell-by date to boxing cognoscenti. But the boxing community and the passionate media that covers the sport have been waiting for this. Now it's finally happening.