Bam Thwack Pow

I'll be straight up and tell you that I don't give a crap about most sports.

The ones that I do like look as if they might have been invented in a prison yard and, while I've recently fallen in love with Aussie Rules Football my first love remains boxing.

What can I say? I like watching guys punch each other and if that makes me a caveman then so be it. Gimme a club and some bison to roast on a spit.

Sounds like good eatin'.

Now, for those of you not in the know, at present the marquee fight that all boxing fans want to see is between two current superstars in the sport: the ostentatious Michigan born Floyd 'Money' Mayweather and Filipino sensation Manny 'Pac Man' Pacquiao.

To put it in nerd terms: it's a lot like wanting to see who's faster, Superman or The Flash (The Flash) or who would win in a fight between the Silver Age Superman and Thor (The Silver Age Superman).

Well, its kind of like that except that Superman has raced not one but two Flashes and Superman and Thor may have squared off already bur given the superhero crowd scene orgy that was JLA/Avengers, I cannot actually recall off-hand and I'm too lazy to get up and thumb through the Absolute Edition sitting in my library somewhere between League of Extraordinary Gentleman and Absolute Planetary Vol. 1.

What I can tell you is that, at this point, pretty much any absurd cross continuity comic book throw down you can think of (Howard The Duck Versus The Dark Knight) is more likely to happen than Mayweather/Pacquiao.

So, why should you care, folks? I dunno.

I could mebbe give you some half-convincing argument about the importance of popular cultures, blah, blah, blah but the real reason you should care is that, if you really get off on thought about who would win in a fight between two superheroes then chances are high you would actually enjoy this fight quite a bit.

What I've found is that the buzz is much the same, but moreso because it's unscripted. In essence, it's more like being a man on the street when worlds collide and The Last Son of Krypton and The Scion of Asgard throw down. From that vantage point, there's no telling what's going to happen and there's a serious kick to that which a scripted four color comic just can't touch .

But it's not going to happen.

The fight has supposedly been half way negotiated, called off, renegotiated, come together and fallen apart more times than Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee; everyone is trying to figure out why and the longer it goes on, the more it appears that the boisterous unbeaten Mayweather is simply too chicken to risk a loss on his record in favor an unblemished but, in the end, unremarkable record.

Oh sure, Floyd is fast (but nowhere near the speed of light and without the absolute control over his molecules that made Barry Allen such a formidable opponent) but Manny is just as fast if not faster and, unlike his opponent, actually has suffered the agony of defeat and come back stronger from it.

Not so Pretty Boy Floyd.

Now, as Mayweather continues to duck Pacquiao, one begins to wonder exactly what sort of legacy Mayweather will leave behind when time and old age finally force him to retire. I think it's possible we can already guess how sports history with view Mayweather as a Boxing Insider poll for 2009 Fighter of the Year has 91% of the vote for The Pac Man while only 5% of fans picked Mayweather.

Even though its highly unlikely Mayweather's PPV numbers will head south anytime soon, it's doubtful Mayweather will be able continue to convince anyone--including himself--of his own relevance in a sport is rapidly growing tired his inability to close the one deal that would allow him to prove--without a doubt--that he has a champion's heart to go along with a champion's pocket book.

So, for now, I guess if you want a good brawl, its back to the funny pages.