Hopefully, in the next two weeks, the Top Rank-Golden Boy squabble will come to a peaceful end.
According to an exclusive report by boxingconfidential.com, there’s now “a real chance” that Top Rank’s Bob Arum and Golden Boy’s Oscar dela Hoya may settle their dispute over the promotional rights to Filipino hotshot Manny Pacquiao.
The dispute started when Pacquiao, considered as the most exciting fighter in the world today, signed separate promotional contracts with the two firms last year, first with Golden Boy in September and then with Top Rank in November.
An expensive legal battle has taken over, and has denied fight fans the chance to witness great fights between boxers from the warring stables, particularly Pacquiao of Top Rank, and Juan Manuel Marquez or Marco Antonio Barrera of Golden Boy.
Michael Marley of boxingconfidential.com wrote the other day that Top Rank and Golden Boy will be made to sit down in Los Angeles in the next two weeks for a settlement conference to be heard and presided over by a judge.
“(I)n the next two weeks, there is a settlement conference scheduled in Los Angeles in which the two sides will be asked by a judge if they can find common ground and perhaps settle the contentious matter without going to trial,” Marley wrote.
“In civil cases especially, judges quite often take an active role in urging the litigating parties to forego the time, expense and psychic wear and tear of having a trial. If the parties can voluntarily settle, with or without a not so gentle push from the judge, it also helps clear up badly overloaded judicial dockets,” he added.
Nobody knows what may happen next if and when the two promoters settle their differences. But when it comes, there should be a clamor for them to find ways and arrange the Pacquioa-Marquez rematch for the world to see.
