Could a Floyd Mayweather, Jr.-Manny Pacquiao fight be closer to reality?
A betting line, making Mayweather a 3-to-1 favorite, has been established and posted at the Mandalay Bay and MGM Race and Sports Books in Las Vegas. It is an unusual move for a fight that hasn?t been confirmed.
?It?s not something that we would normally do if it?s just a projected fight,? said Scott Ghertner, a spokesman for the MGM Grand. ?If we do something like that the fight would have to take place in a certain amount of time.?
Pacquiao is scheduled to meet Chris Algieri in a WBO welterweight title bout in Macau, China on HBO Pay-Per-View on Nov. 22. He would have to win that fight to keep alive any hopes of fighting Mayweather next May in Las Vegas. Mayweather is coming off a unanimous victory in a rematch against Marcos Maidana and ostensibly looking for an opponent for a proposed May 2015 date in Las Vegas.
The timing for a Mayweather-Pacquiao fight couldn?t be more crucial for Mayweather, who is facing serious competition for the May date in Las Vegas from Saul ?Canelo? Alvarez, who recently signed a long-term deal with HBO. Alvarez announced that he will be looking to reclaim the May and September Mexican holiday pay-per-view dates in Las Vegas.
If Alvarez decides to fight middleweight champion Miguel Cotto in May in Las Vegas, Mayweather would have a difficult time pushing Alvarez off that date if he fights anyone other than Pacquiao.
Leonard Ellerbe, the CEO of Mayweather Promotions, did not return a telephone call message seeking comment on whether there are serious negotiations underway for Mayweather to fight Pacquiao.
Mayweather appeared amenable to making a fight with Pacquiao immediately after his victory against Maidana last month. Ellerbe said that if there were going to be negotiations, they wouldn?t talk about them publicly.
Alvarez turned up the heat on Mayweather to make the fight with Pacquiao when the Mexican icon fled Showtime for HBO last month. Alvarez said he grew tired of playing second fiddle to Mayweather at Showtime and sought to establish his own pay-per-view dominance at HBO. He said he plans to fight in May and September regardless of what Mayweather does.
There are very few marketable boxers left for Mayweather to turn in the kind of pay-per-view numbers and over-the-top revenue figures that he has grown accustomed to. Both his matches with Maidana did fewer than 1 million pay per view buys and Mayweather had to console himself with the fact that he still earned a guaranteed $32 million for both matches and that his pay per view numbers were still higher than any other boxer?s figures.
Pacquiao is the only boxer who consistently fights on pay per view and is considered a sure-fire attraction. And while a Mayweather-Pacquiao match isn?t as attractive as it was five years ago when it was first proposed, it remains the only boxing match that interests the general sports fan.
Mayweather insists that he can retire without fighting Pacquiao and keep his legacy intact. But if he never fights Pacquiao, it will be an indelible stain on an otherwise spotless record and the question of why he never fought Pacquiao will nag him for the rest of his life.
Is there any fire behind that newly installed Mayweather-Pacquiao betting line smoke?
