When Manny Pacquaio, one of the most decorated professional boxers in history, recently said he'd consider delaying his retirement to compete in the Rio Summer Games, it revived the debate about the Amateur International Boxing Association's inexorable push toward making pro fighters a routine part of the Olympics.
"I'm not saying I'm going to fight or saying I'm not," Pacquiao said of the Olympics. "I'm not closing the door. I'm thinking about it."
The AIBA had already voted in 2013 to allow boxers with fewer than 20 pro bouts to compete in the Olympics and even earn some pay along the way if they follow a complicated set of qualifying rules in the months leading up to the Games. But AIBA president Wu Ching-Kuo of Taiwan has now tentatively scheduled a June vote among the world's federations that could make the barriers for entry to the Games so much different that some veteran pro boxers might actually be able to compete in Rio in August, not just the far-off 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.
What that could suddenly mean, in theory, is that anyone from the Philippines' Pacquiao to Ukrainian former heavyweight champ Wladimir Klitschko, who has also expressed interest, to American Holly Holm, who was 33-2-3 as a pro boxer before turning to MMA fighting and upsetting Ronda Rousey in their UFC showdown this past November, could be eligible. All it would take would be empty slots on their Olympic teams or having their national federations somehow decide to create slots for them. Those are two big ifs.
But should the pros be invited in?
British boxer Scott Quigg, who suffered his first pro loss in his world super bantamweight title unification bout against Carl Frampton in February, said he was "shocked" when he learned that pros might be allowed at the Olympics.
"When you are an amateur you are learning," Quigg told the Guardian, "and if you start mixing up with the professionals, I think it is a bad idea, and it could be dangerous."
Rau'shee Warren, a three-time U.S. Olympic boxer who is 13-1-1 as a pro, agrees that safety is one of the many issues in play.
"Boxing is a man's game either way," said Warren, 29, noting that one of his early amateur flyweight bouts at age 16 put him against a 28-year-old, whom Warren beat. "But the pros are definitely a whole different ballgame. In the pros, guys are not only stronger and older, we use lighter gloves, and when we get our hands wrapped, it's almost like casts. The punches feel like bricks."
The AIBA is moving full speed ahead anyway.
"We want something to change -- not after four years, but now," Wu said in February.
Under Wu's leadership, AIBA quit referring to its athletes as amateurs a few years ago and began calling them "Olympic-style" boxers instead.
In March, AIBA also lifted the requirement that male Olympic-style boxers wear headgear, a move that runs exactly counter to the raised consciousness in other sports about concussions and brain damage, though women must still wear head protection.
"On the amateur side they're more protective about jumping in when fighters seem hurt," Warren said. "On the pro side, they just let it go. You either have to take a knee or get knocked out. There's a bigger risk of getting hurt. Sometimes you see those famous pictures of fighters getting hit and it looks like their face is collapsing. It's like they're in a car crash. But at least in the pros, you're getting paid."
Klitschko, who turned 40 last month and is training for a July 9 title fight rematch against Tyson Fury, hasn't ruled out a return to the Games or even sticking around till 2020 if AIBA also changes its rules that Olympic boxers must be younger than 41.
The thought of Klitschko, a gold medalist at the 1996 Atlanta Games, or a pro luminary such as Floyd Mayweather competing at the Olympics might be just the kind of jolt Wu is looking to give his sport. Although Mayweather, who felt he was robbed when he had to settle for bronze in '96, has said nothing could lure him out of retirement, somebody with a similar background might be just the type of veteran fighter who would return to the Games for a chance to rewrite history.
Boxing has struggled to remain a marquee Olympic event, whereas many other disciplines, including basketball, tennis, golf, ice hockey and swimming, have long ago included the world's top pros.
USA Boxing executive director Mike Martino admits it's been a "challenge" for America's program and others around the world to retain fighters. He points out that four of the six American men who have qualified for Rio so far are age 19 or younger. One of those, Charles Conwell, is only 18 and turned his attention to his high school prom soon after qualifying in March.
"The IOC has encouraged all sports to make every attempt to bring our best athletes to the Games ... and we're encouraged by anything that could help keep athletes in our sport," Martino says. "But honestly, I don't see an exodus of pros coming back for the Games. Not the way it's currently set up."
A lot of factors do seem to make it unlikely. To box in the Olympics, established pros would have to interrupt their lucrative careers, risk injury in bouts for which they don't get paid and submit to rigorous drug testing and perhaps a long qualifying process. The Olympic format also requires fighters to box multiple times in a condensed time frame, usually five times within 15 days, sometimes on back-to-back days. They also have to make weight before each bout.
"So is it worth it for pros?" Martino asked.
There are also stylistic differences pro boxers would have to adjust to. Currently, men's Olympic bouts consist of three three-minute rounds where boxers go full out;women's matches are four two-minute rounds. Pro fights can go as long as 12 rounds, or 10 for women.
"You really have to pace yourself, pick your spots," Warren says of pro bouts.
Olympic matches are scored differently, too, and fighters are not necessarily given a huge premium for the force of their blows or even knockdowns.
So for now, anyway, someone like Klitschko or Pacquiao would indeed be the outlier who looks at the Olympics as a swan song or a new adventure to put a cool capstone on his or her career.
But beyond that? Using the worldwide recognition that an Olympic gold medal can bring as a springboard would seem to have far more appeal to female boxers than their male counterparts. Pro women lag far behind in media coverage, televised bouts and prize money.
"Holly Holm is a prime example of a female boxer who can fight, who's good looking, who can potentially be a big, big boxing star," Eric Gomez, vice president of Golden Boy Promotions, told the Los Angeles Times. "All she needed was the opportunity. If she would've started her boxing career around now, the potential ... there's no ceiling."
American boxers have won only four gold medals at the past six Games. But Martino said that, to the best of his knowledge, neither Holm nor any other prominent American pro boxer, male or female, has contacted USA Boxing about fighting for the 2016 team. Nor would USA Boxing make way for them at this late date, even if the upcoming AIBA vote makes it possible for any pro to compete in Rio.
"There wouldn't be a spot for Holm even if she was interested, because two of the three female fighters we get to send to the Games have already qualified," Martino said.
One of those qualifiers is defending Olympic middleweight champion Claressa Shields, who intends to turn pro after Rio. She has said she would welcome the chance to box Holm or even Rousey, for that matter. Shields said she knows Rousey's Olympic bronze medal came in judo, not boxing, and has grown tired of constant questions about whether someone who is an MMA great but a boxing novice, such as Rousey, could beat her in boxing.
"I don't have a medal that's not gold, and they're talking about how she can beat me? No the hell she can't." Shields said about Rousey, per Sports Illustrated.
Shields has more respect for Holm, who boxed professionally from 2002 to 2013.
A quixotic chase of Olympic glory by the likes of Holm or Rousey would certainly get a new audience to tune into boxing at the Summer Games. Some cynics believe sparking that kind of attention is Wu and AIBA's real goal.
Referring to how word of Pacquiao's meeting with Wu slipped out, former world champ Barry McGuigan scoffed, "It's a publicity stunt."
Someone in boxing nakedly seeking more publicity? That's an impulse older than boxing gloves themselves.