During a recent visit to the Wild Card Boxing Club in Los Angeles, California, our colleague Igor Frank crossed paths with HBO color analyst Jim Lampley. Originally hailing from Odessa, Ukraine and now a contributor to Examiner.com and 3MoreRounds.com hailing from Glendale, Frank pressed Lampley for his thoughts on the latest developments revolving around Floyd Mayweather Jr.
Mayweather recently was given a delay on his 90-day jail sentence, initially scheduled to begin on January 6th, and is now clear to go ahead with a May 5th appearance at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada that he had penciled in dating back to early November.
Lampley feels that Floyd?s latest maneuver was of pure quality.
?Floyd did the brilliant thing,? Lampley stated.? He made a deal with MGM Grand on May 5, clearly as a way of buying insurance against legal system. It paid off perfectly for him in the form of the ruling that he doesn?t have to face his sentence until June and can remain at large until May so that he can do his civic duty as a Las Vegas citizen and earn millions of dollars for the community.
?That gave him back the upper hand and put him in the position to call out [Manny] Pacquiao, because he knows dog gone good and well that Pacquiao and [Top Rank promoter Bob] Arum had already moved forward and moved away from the idea of even trying to make the fight, as they were looking for an opponent within this time frame which didn?t seem available when Mayweather was supposedly headed to jail.?
True enough, it does appear that Pacquiao and Arum had already set their sights beyond Floyd, fully thinking he was heading to jail, and had cited the names of Juan Manuel Marquez, Miguel Cotto, Lamont Peterson, and Timothy Bradley as possible opponents.
Pacquiao and Mayweather have been linked to one another seriously for over two years now, with the fight always failing to materialize for one way or another. In the past it had been Mayweather who had been accused of dodging his nemesis yet now Lampley feels the public may have a different outlook.
?It?s really hard to say at this point, who is ducking who,? Lampley claimed. ?I think perception for a long time was that Mayweather was ducking Pacquiao. The perception at this time, probably among most fans would be that Pacquiao is ducking Mayweather. The bottom line is they don?t like each other. Their business representatives aren?t happy about doing business with each other.?
But what Lampley expect to happen next for Pacquiao? Giving his take, he feels that a rematch with Miguel Cotto, who Pacquiao defeated in November of 2009 and who is also now a promotional free agent, may be in the works.
?For instance, Top Rank at this moment, needs economic incentive to keep Miguel Cotto in its ranks,? Lampley added. ?They need to give Cotto some big reward for new contract to stay with Top Rank. What?s the obvious reward they have for anybody at that position? A rematch with Manny Pacquiao. What does that mean? Mayweather waits. That frankly is what I expect to happen.?
