Pacquiao vs. Mayweather, the best of the best

From Manila

This one has a familiar ring. Pacquiao-Mayweather. Here we go again.

This is the Ali-Foreman of our time. The real stuff. Boxing titles its fights and this one is easy: The Best of the Best. Finally, the sport that excels at selling us pigs and calling it filet mignon would be delivering genuine Kobe beef.

There are guys who fight and then there are Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. They are artists in the boxing ring. The rest are paint-by-the-numbers guys.

We have been here before, but this is boxing. The gauntlets thrown down outside the ring are as much fun as the punches thrown in it.

Mayweather said he’d fight if Pacquiao took more than the normal pre-fight drug test. Check his blood, Mayweather said, implying that Pacquiao’s sculpted body was more the result of pills than pumped iron.

Pacquiao, with no history of any such pill-taking, was insulted. He so disliked being called out by the trash-talking Mayweather and his trash-talking dad and trainer-uncle, that Pacquiao not only said no, but sued for defamation of character. They’ll settle this in the ring well before they do so in court.

So, the fight of the century -- in boxing, they have about 30 of those every 100 years -- didn’t happen.

Pacquiao went off to fight in Dallas, allowing his promoter, Bob Arum, to provide additional time in the limelight for his friend Jerry Jones. Jones helped entice 60,000 to his shiny new football stadium and Pacquiao entertained them by punching a turtle for 12 rounds. Joshua Clottey peeked out of his self-imposed shell of raised boxing gloves just long enough to get whacked hard several times by Pacquiao.

Mayweather waited until last weekend to counter, so to speak.

He took a couple of hard shots from the once-great Shane Mosley, and then put on a boxing clinic. The message was clear: Take a look at that, Manny.

Certainly, Pacquiao did. But it will be several weeks before the Filipino star will be able to focus on his future with Floyd. Pacquiao is in the late rounds of his run for a seat in the Philippine Congress. Election day here is May 10.

Why would a boxer seek politics?

Once poverty ridden, Pacquiao takes his celebrity seriously and doesn’t think the cliche of helping the less fortunate is one. He is the Robin Hood of the Philippines, except he doesn’t have to take from the rich to give to the poor. He is the rich.

Mayweather, while a more decent guy than the image he perpetuates, talks trash, lives fast and directs much of his charity to various Las Vegas night clubs.

The contrast just adds to the anticipation. Not only do both box like a dream, but one wears the figurative white cowboy hat and the other a black one. Sports often attempts to find morality plays amidst its competition, and it has one here.

Mayweather’s cards are already on the table: “You saw what I did to Mosley. Take a blood test and you know where to find me.” Pacquiao’s side would answer: “We’ll fight if you don’t dictate the terms.” So if it sounds as if this has come right back to where it was months ago, indeed it has. But the economy has improved a bit and the money will be even better.

Arum arrives here Wednesday, and his presence may include time for more than merely to signal to the voters that, yes, he still expects Pacquiao to fight on, even if he wins the election. As Arum said so famously after the Clottey fight, Pacquiao’s election shouldn’t be the slightest interruption to his boxing, because “he would do the same thing congressmen in the United States do. Nothing.”

Certainly, amidst the rallies and banner-waving, Arum and Pacquiao will talk about Mayweather. Arum likes the potential revenue from all those seats in Cowboys Stadium. Richard Schaefer, the man out front for Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions and for Mayweather’s mysterious manager, Al Haymon, prefers the casino scene.

When the two sides sit down to talk, there will be egos and agendas flying around. Voices will rise, fingers will point.

If they do it right, just before they go into the room, they’ll have Michael Buffer stand outside the door and intone: “Let’s Get Ready to Rumble.”

Will the fight happen? You bet.

Last week, a reporter asked Freddie Roach, Pacquiao’s trainer, and guru, that very question. Roach looked him in the eye and said, “We really want him.”

In boxing, everybody understands that language.

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