Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather need each other

Would anybody argue with the assertion that Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather jnr are the two best pound-for-pound boxers on the planet right now?

You can add further spice to that by making Manny Pacquiao the world’s best active offensive fighter, and Mayweather the best active defensive boxer. You’ve got the irresistable force against the untouchable target (one can’t call Mayweather the unmovable object).

Fans should be relishing the prospect of a match-up between these two men. Until Mayweather retired, after hammering Ricky Hatton, he was the pound-for-pound king. In his absence, that title has been usurped by Pacquiao.

How often has boxing really seen two fighters at their prime facing off? When last did pugilism see the world’s two best fighters trading blows legitimately in the same division?

Probably not since the 1980s – when Sugar Ray Leonard, Thomas Hearns, Roberto Duran and Marvin Hagler fought each other in a stunning series of battles. They fought, they won, they lost … and they all became legends! The winners needed the losers.

In the 1970s it was the same in the heavyweight division, with Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, George Foreman and Ken Norton all winning and losing. That’s how they became legends.

Sure, I may have overlooked some fights along the way, but in boxing it is rare to get top performers in the same weight division at the same time. Think about it, Evander Holyfield and Mike Tyson were past their best when they met Lennox Lewis.

Joe Louis was an old man when he got smashed by Rocky Marciano, although if you examine the damage on Marciano’s face by the end of the fight, you have to wonder what might have happened if Louis had been at his best.

More often than not, fighters are not at their peak. Bernard Hopkins was still relatively wet behind the ears when he took on Roy Jones jnr. In the 1990s we had Oscar De La Hoya, Felix Trinidad, Ike Quartey, Shane Mosley and Vernon Forrest, but none of them quite reached the heights of Leonard, Hearns and Duran before them (at least in my eyes).

As a mainstream sport boxing has lost much ground in the past decades. The worst thing that can happen is if the promoters and TV bosses fail to organise the Pacquiao v Mayweather showdown. Boxing needs this fight to happen.

And both Pacquiao and Mayweather need this fight. The winner will earn bragging rights as the pound-for-pound champion, but he can only do that with the other guy in the ring.

Greatness beckons both; Pacquiao and Mayweather need each other.

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