The covers of the slapdash tribute magazines for Muhammad Ali at the supermarket checkout counters all depicted him as a young man. That’s to be expected: It’s a lot more savory to recall Ali as the beautiful dynamo who conquered Sonny Liston than as the aged sentinel humbled by his own hubris.
With boxing, as the Rolling Stones said, you can’t always get what you want. In fact, you virtually never get what you want.
But just this once, as a fight that every boxing fan desires actually may become reality, you might just find you get what you need.
The highly anticipated war between Manny Pacquiao and Miguel Cotto went down on Saturday night pretty much as I expected, but it doesn’t mean that Pacquiao’s victory was any less striking or significant.
Most everyone has some sort of demon that they carry with them, not necessarily on the surface. These aren’t necessarily Norman Bates-type demons, Exorcist-style demons, but rather things that weigh on us daily that we have to overcome.
On the eve of the biggest fight in the career of both Manny Pacquiao and Miguel Cotto, the burdens that the two highly skilled fighters bring with them have become the story.
It turns out I was right about Floyd Mayweather winning his match against Juan Manuel Marquez by decision, and also that Marquez’s history of being a slow starter would hurt him, as Floyd downed him in the second round and dominated the early portion of the fight. But what I wasn’t right about is that Marquez would make an impact in the middle rounds, as he was pretty much completely shut out.
I knew Floyd was bigger than Marquez, but I didn’t expect him to show up two pounds heavier than the catch weight at the weigh-in, a significant amount. He had to pay per pound to allow the fight to go off. And though Floyd doesn’t fight like a big man, using his fluidity and quickness to his benefit, he obviously used his size advantage.
Mayweather lost a deal of respect by being either unable or unwilling to make weight, essentially making this a fight between a good big man and a good small man. The good small man never wins that fight. This isn’t the Tour De France.
I’ll make this brief since I don’t think I could tell you any more than the brilliant 24/7 series has on HBO: Juan Manuel Marquez will not defeat Floyd Mayweather this Saturday night.
But he’ll give Floyd a tough time.