So Money

One of the sad things about the May 1 welterweight title fight between Floyd "Money" Mayweather and "Sugar" Shane Mosely was that it truly did seem to scream "Mayday! Mayday!"

Let's not kid ourselves, now that the fight has concluded, there is only a single faint spark on the horizon for professional boxing, currently lost in a maze of belts and the oblivion of pay-per-view.

The saving throw, most everyone tied to the sport agrees, would be a Mayweather/Manny Pacquiao match. Nothing seems to sell quite like pitting the best against the best, after all.

The sheer amount of money to be made would seem to override any sort of holdup in the negotiation room. Before those negotiations fell through, both fighters were guaranteed at least $25 million each.

To put that in perspective, Mayweather landed 208 punches in the Mosley fight. That translates into $120,192.31 per punch. Nice work if you can get it, except they can't (and they tried).

Mayweather's camp points the finger at Pacquiao's refusal to submit to Olympic-style blood testing. Pacquiao's incredible career and his frenetic energy in the ring might, right or wrong, lead people to think he was running on a little more than adrenaline.

The Pacquiao camp -- and most of the sports top pundits like Bert Sugar -- say money is the reason for the holdup. In an interview with freelance journalist Elie Seckbach, Sugar spun the tale with equal parts disgust and annoyance. He thinks it's about ego.

"[Mayweather] views himself as the greatest fighter of all time because he's never lost," Sugar said. "He's not afraid of Pacquiao ... what he's afraid of is losing."

Pacquiao's seeming ambivalence at losing $25 million because he fears a blood sample 24 days before the fight will make him "weak" is more than suspect. Still, Mayweather's claim of "trying to clean up the sport" falls short of the mark when he's essentially dragging the reputation of a fighter that's never tested positive for drugs through the mud with glee.

And Mayweather, known best for his seemingly nonstop, hyper-intense stream of smack talking in pre-fight interviews and HBO's "24/7," seems to be hearing the same lament from just about everybody who enjoys watching two men knock each other senseless in the desert these days. Doesn't he know that boxing depends on this fight for its revival?

Like so many of his opponents' punches, Mayweather deftly sidesteps the question and responds with a quick right.

"Boxing hasn't gone anywhere," the top-grossing fighter of all time defiantly told media before the Mosely bout. "As long as I'm in boxing, boxing is here to stay."

Mayweather may be right. He is, after all, so money ... and he totally knows it.

Mark Vasto is a veteran sportswriter and publisher of The Kansas City Luminary.

(c) 2010 King Features Synd., Inc.