Floyd-Manny debacle giving boost to MMA

There’s just one winner if Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao continue on this course to spoil all the positive energy boxing created in 2009: mixed martial arts.

For a moment it looked like boxing would reclaim some of the popularity it lost to MMA over the latter part of the decade. After a build-up of encouraging bouts involving Pacquiao, Mayweather, Miguel Cotto and others, Pacquiao and Mayweather were set to meet in perhaps the richest, most talked about showdown in boxing history.

Instead, their negotiations have dissolved in a cesspool of accusations, double-talk, and now a defamation lawsuit filed by Pacquiao against Mayweather and his family. Pacquiao, the hottest star is boxing, is now under suspicion, rightly or wrongly, of using performance-enhancing drugs for not agreeing to Olympic-style blood testing, while Mayweather’s willingness to fight Pacquiao is being questioned because of his refusal to reach a compromise. Bottom line: Boxing’s two biggest stars are now tainted, one as an alleged cheat, the other as an alleged coward.

Poised to take advantage is Dana White, president of the UFC, which rolls right into 2010 with UFC 108 tonight in Las Vegas. Former light heavyweight champ Rashad Evans of Niagara Falls faces Brazilian jujitsu artist Thiago Silva in the main event.

It’s going to be awesome, White said of the pay-per-view card. Both guys have one loss to [UFC light heavy champ Lyoto] Machida. Evans wants his belt back, but first and foremost he wants to get through this fight. Most of all, he wants to fight Rampage [Quinton Jackson], which will put him back in line to get a title.

That’s how it works in the UFC, the best fight the best to fight the best without a lot of nonsense. MMA fighters don’t make as much money as the top boxers, and the UFC is pretty much a dictator when it comes to match-making. It keeps negotiations to basically a take it or leave it offer, and fans get what they want.

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