When people talk about the great fighters in boxing history, they talk about the rivalries. They talk about the iconic bouts, they talk about the moments that decided them and the images that captured them. Ali is The Greatest because he said so. But he’s an undisputed legend because of the fights with Frazier. With Foreman. With Norton. With Liston. If you wanna be the best, you have to beat the best.

Floyd Mayweather is the best. He just is, there’s no other fighter, pound for pound, who can match him. Quite possibly he is the greatest defensive fighter in the history of the sport. Even at age 38, when you see Floyd fight you are witnessing greatness. But Manny Pacquiao is no chump himself. Where Floyd has excelled with flawless defensive technique, Pacquiao has gotten it done with an irresistible and irrepressible offensive approach. He is the unstoppable force to Mayweather’s immovable object. Rarely have a pair fighters seemed so perfectly matched.

Talks between the two started back in 2009. Six years of strained negotiations. Call-outs and insults. Fall-outs and accusations. Unfulfilled hype. Tortured fans desperate for an answer to that age-old sporting debate: Who’s Better?

That’s the beauty of rivalry. It exists not only between the athletes but between us all. We bicker and we pick sides. Money Team or Manny Team. It becomes so pervasive that it takes on a whole new meaning. The finest rivalries are divisive, they’re immense, they’re ubiquitous.

Rivalries matter. They propel each competitor to a higher plane. Pacquiao and Mayweather were inextricably linked whether they liked it or not and the fact is, the longer they dodged each other, the more damage they did their sport. Without this fight their careers were incomplete. With it they catapult themselves, win or lose, into the stratosphere, into immortality, beyond the sports pages and into the collective public conscience.

Sometime in the evening on May 2nd at the MGM Grand Theatre in Las Vegas, the world will stop spinning for a short while.

It’s now been a couple weeks since the fight was confirmed, a couple months since it became clear that it was destined to be. In that time I’ve skipped through many emotions. Starting with complete indifference, then scepticism, then mild interest… all the way to the point where I’m now super excited. All on board, I cannot wait. This is gonna be the biggest event in boxing in over a decade. It’s bigger than Tyson-Lewis. It trumps Oscar De La Hoya’s fights against either Floyd or Manny. We’re talking probably the two most well-known active fighters on the planet. After years of anticipation. Mano a mano.

Both fighters have lost a step or two, and even if they’re each still firmly entrenched in that fabled elite category, neither can still claim to be at their peak. So what? Ali was arguably past his peak for the Thriller in Manila. The six-year wait was a drag in every way… it also means that this fight has reached a level of intrigue beyond anything even these two greats have ever experienced.

Apparently, after all those mixed messages, what finally tipped the scales of the fight from promoters dream to reality was a chance encounter courtside at a Miami Heat game in January. The first time they’d ever met face to face according to Manny. Numbers were swapped and hands were shaken. The teams met in a hotel room to figure it out. Even Showtime (Floyd’s broadcasters) and HBO (Manny’s) agreed to split the coverage, and why wouldn’t they? We’re talking the highest grossing fight in history.

Look, you can be cynical like I was for a while there. Too much money, too much hype, two fighters on the way back down… but this fight matters. A sport too often relegated into the greasy fingers of shady promoters and slimy bookies, and on these shores a sport barely more credible than ‘Dancing With the Stars’, our one legitimate heavyweight prospect overshadowed by giggling celebrity sparring and bored rugby & league players swinging their arms like windmills in the general direction of some overweight hired goons.

Not anymore. Floyd Mayweather vs Manny Pacquiao is for real. The debate isn’t gonna end with this so-called ‘Fight of the Century’, but it’ll always be a milestone moment where the careers of two legendary pugilists intersected. With the heavyweight division still awaiting a challenger that could possibly dethrone Vladimir Klitschko, this will be the rivalry that defines boxing for a generation.

There was a time when a title fight captured the imagination of the planet the way a World Cup final, an Olympic 100m sprint or a Super Bowl might still. For at least one night – a Sunday afternoon in NZ – a boxing bout will be the centre of all attention. There’s hope yet. Don’t act like you don’t care.