PARIS AND I DON’T MEAN TEXAS ? Some people are calling for both HBO sports bossman Ross Greenburg and Floyd Mayweather Jr. to issue public proclamations about how and why the so-called second round of ?negotiations? for a Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao bout fell apart.
I think all that really occurred was made of papier-mache to begin with, that the only onsided action was Pacman promoter Bob Arum simply presenting a list of the accepatable terms under which his fighter would tangle with ?Money May? on Nov. 13.
As we all know now, there will be no ?November To Remember,? at least not this year. No Fight Of The Century, Fight Of The Decade and maybe noting even resembling a Fight Of The Year unless it matches guys not named Mayweather or Pacquiao.
Some demand accountability here and I don’t blame them. But I can predict you will continue not to hear a peep out of the supremely arrogant Mayweather.
Bob Arum’s bluster about why “negotiations” failed was trasnparently ridiuclous, self-serving
Which reminds me, where is Richie Rich Schaefer’s version of why the making of the Super Bout turned into a disaster for a second time?
He and his boss, Oscar de la Hoya, kept mouthing their platitudes about the so called gag order silencing them. And Oscar was on national TV saying things were looking up and that he was optimistic that the Big Bout would be put together?
Arum has already given us his convoluted, self-serving version of the snafu so where is the response or explanation from Mayweather’s hired promoter, Golden Boy?
What was Schaefer dutifully keeping his pie hole shut for if there was nothing but an Arum made demand, a wish list, and no response or any kind of counteroffer from the Mayweather side?
The one guy I will let off the hook here is Greenburg.
The man is not the commissioner of boxing. He’s not supposed to regulate the sport. He is working for a publicly traded but private company.
The man is, at heart, a TV sports producer whose mission is to bring in the best sports programming he can find.
Unlike the handlers of Manny and Floyd, he has no responsbility to report his take on the fightmaking failure as he sees it.
Now it looks like both Arum and Mayweather aide Laughing Lenny Ellerbe have, if not sold him out, let his twist in the wind of the public’s imagination and indignation.
And don’t think there isn’t indignation across the world as a result of a match the public has salivated over not being made.
I was sitting in a Viennese cafe, enjoying a cool breeze off the Blue Danube and hearing strains of local hero Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (I recommend his haus/museum as a tourist must see spot) in the distance, when a visitor from Washington, DC, by way of Chicago noticed I had a Pacquiao teeshirt on.
?Hey,? the U.S. visitor to Austria said to me, ?do you think that fight is going to happen in November??
I gave him the sad news, told him how both sides could probably screw up the one car funeral procession, and he expressed great dissatisfaction upon hearing it.
It’s time to draw the curtain on the blame game in this scenario.
Any further reporting from those involved or their leaks to cozy media friends will only prove as self-serving as Arum’s 20 pounds of garbage inside a 10 pound bag.
Or maybe even more odious.
Talking about why the fight has not been made is beyond boring now.
But the Golden Boys owe us some explanation for Oscar’s sunny outlook, expressed on George Lopez’s national TV show, and Schaefer’s continual references to the gag order.
Hey, maybe that was it.
There was a gag order because the whole thing was just that, a gag.
How come no one is laughing?
Blaming Greenburg or demanding he ‘fess up is idiotic.
Why shoot the TV suit who was only a conduit, merely a messenger?
Leave Greenie alone as he was merely doing his job.
We’ve heard Arum’s babbling brook of nonsense.
Now let’s from the Golden Boys and from Mayweather himself.
If neither or both remain gagged, then they’ve just co-signed Arum’s endless list of excuses.
And the donkey’s tail will remain pinned on them.
That’s fair enough. Arum has made a horse’s ass of himself and the Golden Twins and Mayweather are the donkeys.
Boxing is such a barnyard.
But don’t donkeys usually bray?
