Despite the numerous potential negotiation problems, Wild Card optimist Freddie Roach is still confident that Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao will meet in the ring.
Roach is one of the few who has maintained that he thinks the fight will go through eventually, and realizes that the easiest way to make that happen is for both sides to compromise.
Speaking on a radio interview today, Roach said:
?Yes, it is going to happen. I just talked to Bob Arum yesterday. Bob is flying to the Philippines to make Manny the offer. We are going to make this work the best we can. I think we have enough ammo to get it done quickly because there is a lot of money out there. We?re going to meet in the middle [on the drug tests]. They wanted 14. We wanted 24. [We’ll do] 17, 18-days,” Roach said. “They are talking October, November. Definitely [to happen] before the year is out.”
Whether Mayweather will now accept any drug testing cut off will probably be the deciding factor of whether the fight happens.
Had the pay per view figures for Mayweather vs, Mosley been much higher, the purse split might have been an issue as well. Before the fight Mayweather was dropping some pretty big hints that he would demand the bigger share of the purse if he sold more than Pacquiao has in the past.
If early estimates are accurate though the pay per view only sold 1.2 million buys or so. A good number, but not enough to definitively rove Mayweather is the bigger seller than Pacquiao. The purse split was agreed upon at 50-50 last time around, and with less than expected sales from the Mosley fight, this will probably be the case again.
The drug testing issue is another thing Mayweather was hoping to have more bargaining power with after he fought Mosley. Again high sales would have allowed Mayweather to simply demand fully random testing or stop the fight from happening. Given that he isn’t the draw he thought though, and that there is a lot of money on the table for a Pacquiao fight, Mayweather might just reconsider.
Stephen Miller, Pittsburgh: “I’m with Roach on this one, I mean who else are Mayweather and Pacquiao going to fight anyway?”
For Mayweather, there is also apparently the option of moving up in eight once again and taking on middleweight champion Sergio Martinez. For Pacquiao, fights with Antonio Margarito, or taking on the winner of Miguel Cotto vs. Yuri Foreman are also options, so it isn’t as if they don’t have any opponents. If both are willing to risk a loss though, a fight between the two and a rematch would make each more money than taking numerous other fights put together.
James Hibbert, Pittsburgh: “Roach has said this all along, I’m still not convinced though”
Stan Franklin, Pittsburgh: “If the negotiations were up to Roach, he would have had the fight made already. The cross dresser and Bob ‘the fossil’ Arum are the ones who are stopping this from going ahead”
Greame Smith, Philly: “This fight is never happening, Arum doesn’t want his cash cow to lose and Mayweather doesn’t want to risk his 0 against someone who might take it”
