Pacquiao and Mayweather will deliver
It may be happening five years too late but despite the eye-watering purses, this is a one-off bout about legacies to define both fighters
Manny Pacquiao slept through the big announcement, secure in knowing that the fight was already made and the questions would finally stop.
He campaigned for a shot with Floyd Mayweather with a tenacity befitting a congressman from Sarangani province, making him a winner long before the two step into the ring on May 2.
If Mayweather got most of everything he wanted out of the deal, Pacquiao got the thing he wanted most - a chance to finally settle matters
If Mayweather got most of everything he wanted out of the deal, Pacquiao got the thing he wanted most - a chance to finally settle matters inside the squared circle that took him on an improbable path from the depths of poverty in the Philippines.
"Finally! It's been five years in the making," Pacquiao told Manila's GMA television at the weekend from his hometown of General Santos city. "I'm very excited about this fight. I will no longer be bothered by people who keep on asking if the fight will ever happen."
That it is happening is in large part due to a carefully orchestrated campaign that began in Macau in November to build pressure on Mayweather, and a meeting at a basketball game in Miami that took place only because an ice storm blanketed the east coast and delayed Pacquiao's travel plans.
It's happening because trainer Freddie Roach ran into CBS chief honcho Les Moonves, which led to a sit-down with promoter Bob Arum and kicked off the talks.