Minutes before Manny Pacquiao decked Ricky Hatton in May, Pacquiao's business manager grabbed a ringside chair.
The small talk was that morning's surprise comeback announcement by Floyd Mayweather Jr., who had "retired" a year earlier while atop the pound-for-pound rankings with a 39-0 record -- perfection enhanced in 2007 by a victory over Oscar De La Hoya in boxing's most lucrative event ever.
"Mayweather just shot himself in the head," Pacquiao's business manager, Michael Koncz, assessed. "Now, he has to sell a fight on his own."
If it was an imposing task then for the skilled fighter stuck in a bad-guy's role, doing so in the face of an active criminal investigation and personal financial problems has made the challenge stiffer.
Instead of waiting for the Pacquiao outcome or making a date with world welterweight champion Shane Mosley, Mayweather chose his comeback foe to be Mexico's world lightweight champion, Juan Manuel Marquez, best known for his 2003 draw and 2008 split-decision loss to Pacquiao.
"Me fighting Shane Mosley?" Mayweather asked as he stopped in Hollywood on Monday to hype Saturday's welterweight bout in Las Vegas. "Who wants to see that fight?"
Some are asking the same question about Mayweather-Marquez. Larry Merchant, HBO's boxing analyst, recently e-mailed The Times regarding Mayweather: "Historically, greatness has been determined not by not losing, but by fighting -- and often re-fighting -- the best opponents out there." Marquez, smaller than Mayweather, is a 4-1 underdog.
The cheapest $150 seats that usually sell out within hours in major bouts remained on sale Monday for Mayweather-Marquez. Fight promoter Richard Schaefer said he expects a live gate in excess of $6 million, and predicts the bout will be the most lucrative pay-per-view fight of the year, exceeding the 850,000 buys of Pacquiao-Hatton. Pacquiao's Nov. 14 fight against welterweight champion Miguel Cotto is already sold out, promoter Bob Arum noted this week, with nearly $9 million in tickets sold.
Beyond the suspect matchmaking, Mayweather's ability to bridge his brilliant boxing skills to the maximum millions he could collect as one of the world's top fighters is being tested by his associations: to people involved in a shooting last month outside a roller-skating rink where he often takes his children, and to his uncle-trainer Roger Mayweather, who was arrested in August on suspicion of attempting to strangle a female boxer.
