It is about 7:30 pm, EST as I pen this update from my igloo on the frozen tundra of Cape Cod.
It’s so cold around here the polar bears from the New Bedford Zoo checked into the Ramada.
And, for those of you who thought it would be a similarly frosty night in the Sixth Circle of Hell when the opposing sides resolved all this nonsense about blood testing and made the Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao mega bout for March, I must disagree.
This fight gets made tonight or tomorrow (Wednesday). Not because the Mayweathers or the Golden Boys or the Top Rank Boys care about you, Joe Fan, but because of the huge financial jackpot awaiting all concerned.
Money doesn’t talk in boxing, it screams. And what it’s screaming now is that Bob Arum and Richard Schaefer will look like Moe and Larry of the Three Stooges if they don’t fashion a deal with this blood testing as the one and only issue extant. The TR Boys and the Golden Boys do care about pleasing paymasters at the MGM Grand Mirage and at HBO.
They care plenty about feathering their nests with those two interests.
Mayweather will retire someday, so will the Pinoy Idol. After they hang up the gloves, the prime cale network and the casino operator will still be forking over large amounts of money to boxing promoters. This is my final forecast on the syringe or not to syringe controversy.
I could be wrong as I often am. I do not claim Madam Auring clairvoyant status.
But, while I am freezing cold, you don’t have to be bold to predict that this drug examination wrinkle will shortly be ironed out.
Full steam ahead for March 13. Matthew Hatton, throw him an undercard spot. Ditto for Yuri Foreman.
The last three times I phoned Uncle Bob the call went to voice mail.
Maybe he’s going over the deal with Manny on the phone.
Last time I checked, Pacman had the good sense that God gave a mule if not more.
Pacquiao will take both injections, the one for blood and the financial one.
A $25 to $30 million injection is more than either Pacquiao or Mayweather could have ever expected to earn in a boxing career, let alone on one single night in the ring.
Money will make this fight despite the Alphonese & Gaston routine of the negotiating parties.
Any minute now you will hear “done deal.”
Common sense will prevail.
The dollar will holler.
