Morning After: Time for Floyd Mayweather to Un-Retire, Fight Manny Pacquiao

Manny Pacquiao firmly established last night that he's the best active boxer in the world, with an incredible, dominant win over Oscar De La Hoya.

But while Pacquiao's name belongs atop the list of the best pound-for-pound boxers, there's an asterisk next to it. Because as long as Floyd Mayweather is retired, we'll always be left wondering whether Pretty Boy Floyd or the Pac-Man is truly the greatest boxer of his generation.

So it's time for Mayweather to come out of retirement. These two great boxers need to get in the ring together.

Mayweather retired in June, leaving the sport with a 39-0 record and at the time was universally recognized as the best pound-for-pound boxer in the world, saying he simply had no desire to fight anymore. But two things have always motivated Mayweather: challenging opponents and big paydays. Pacquiao provides both.

The payday would be less than the $25 million or so Mayweather made when he beat De La Hoya in 2007, but it could easily reach $10 million. That's a hard number to say "no" to. And the challenge would be the greatest of Mayweather's career: Can he take all of 2008 off and return in 2009 to take on an opponent who has a combination of speed and punching power the likes of which he's never seen?

I believe he can: I maintain that if Mayweather trained hard enough to come into a fight with Pacquiao in top shape, Mayweather would have to be considered the favorite. But if there's any boxer who could become the first to have his hand raised at the end of a fight with Mayweather, it's Pacquiao.

The bottom line is that two of the great welterweights in history were born just a year apart, Mayweather in 1977 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Pacquiao in 1978 in Kibawe, Philippines. It would be a real shame if these two great warriors never squared off against each other.

My favorite sights of De La Hoya-Pacquiao:
1. De La Hoya walking across the ring before the start of the ninth round and nodding toward Pacquiao, making clear that he was approaching him not to continue the fight but to hug the man who had beaten him. This was the worst moment of De La Hoya's professional life -- the moment when he realized he was too old to beat an elite opponent -- and his only concern was congratulating Pacquiao. How many of us would show such grace and dignity in our worst moments?

2. Noll De Castro, Vice President of the Philippines, celebrating in the ring after the fight. If you don't realize how incredibly important Pacquiao is to the Filipino people, ask yourself this: Could you see Dick Cheney celebrating in the ring after a prizefight?

3. During the final introductions before the fight, De La Hoya was going through his last-minute warm-ups and looked a little agitated. Bernard Hopkins -- who should be a cornerman when his boxing career ends -- strolled over to him and said, "Relax. You don't want to be tight. Relax."



Quotes of the night:
"I was connecting with everything. He was connecting with nothing."
-- Manny Pacquiao, not bragging, just providing an accurate description of what happened in the ring.

"You were right, Freddie. I don't have it anymore."
-- Oscar De La Hoya, telling his former trainer (and Pacquiao's current trainer), Freddie Roach, that Roach had been correct in his pre-fight prediction that Pacquiao would expose De La Hoya as old and slow.

"My heart still wants to fight, that's for sure. But when your physical doesn't respond, then what can you do? So I have to be smart."
-- De La Hoya, sounding dazed in the ring after the fight, suggesting he's close to retiring.

Stock up:
Victor Ortiz, the 21-year-old who won an impressive second-round TKO over Jeffrey Resto on the undercard. American boxing is short on star power, but if there's an American who has a chance to be a boxing superstar over the next decade, it's Ortiz.

Stock down:
Nacho Beristain, who trained De La Hoya for last night's fight, is considered one of the best in the business. But De La Hoya never looked like he had any game plan at all for facing a smaller, faster man. Beristain's fighter looked woefully unprepared for the onslaught of punches from Pacquiao.

Fight I want to see next:
Most people think Pacquiao will take on Ricky Hatton next. That's a fight that could do huge business anywhere in the world: It would be a major event if they had it in Las Vegas, it would attract 100,000 people to Wembley Stadium if they had it in London, it would make both fighters tens of millions of dollars if they had it in Abu Dhabi, and it would be even bigger than the Thrilla in Manila if they had it in Pacquiao's homeland.

But as great as Pacquiao-Hatton would be, that's not the fight I want to see next. Come on, Pretty Boy Floyd. End your retirement. Give us a battle for the ages.