Pacquaio Fight Too Risky For mayweeather

Jim Jeffries - Heavyweight Champion 1899-1905
painting courtesy of Willa Home blog

The fight that we've all been hoping and praying for this year is not going to take place. It appears that the Floyd Mayweather Jr. camp wants no piece of a fight that jeopardizes their unblemished record. They can make every excuse in the book to not fight Manny Pacquiao, but the facts will always point to avoidance and fear.

Maybe we fans have nothing to lose in a Mayweather vs Pacquiao bout, but obviously Floyd does. For Floyd Mayweather Jr. to lose and have to answer questions about Pacquiao's superiority over the boxing world and himself, is just too much for his ego to grasp. Floyd's egotistic fears are what's keeping him from fighting Manny and proving to the world that he is the greatest pound-for-pound boxer in the sport today.

The history of boxing has shown us that when any boxing champion shuns a match-up against a more than worthy opponent, he is avoiding shame, ridicule and the legendary invincibility of his skills being overcome by another. He is a legend in his own mind and must retain that mental picture at all costs. To him, avoiding a possible defeat is like avoiding death. We fans will never know what its like to be a Boxing Champion fearful of the death of our legacy. Floyd knows, and sadly enough he's cowered to that deadly vision. The fearful vision of "What if I lose?

Well Floyd, I'm here to tell you that the price of a real Champion isn't in dollars and belts; the price of being a true Champion is in having the courage to look at yourself in the mirror and tell your fearful ego to "scram" while you, the man, handle your business.

Funny that earlier this month marked the 100th anniversary of a boxing match that involved such a man who overcame his and society's reluctance to face their worse fear in the ring of boxing. The fear was based on racial superiority and invincibility in the ring. The man was former champion Jim Jeffries who after years of refusing to fight unbeaten challenger Jack Johnson, a negro, finally took a look in the mirror and unsheathed the man behind the lying ego.

Jim Jeffries would go on to lose to Jack Johnson in what is forever known as "The Fight of the Century." Jim's loss humbled just about everybody in the white boxing world, as well as white society as a whole. The thought of a negro reigning supreme over a white man in any venue was too much to grasp for America's white society of 1910. They viewed themselves as racially superior and any threat to that image instilled fearful doubt of themselves as they believed themselves to be.

Probably the only man that can say that in 1910 he faced one of white America's worse fears is Jim Jeffries. Some whites never forgave Jim for taking the fight and risking their false belief of racial invincibility, but they weren't nor had ever been a champion. Jim Jeffries was and always will be a Champion.

Floyd Mayweather, Jr., you are no Jim Jeffries!