Boxing: Manny Pacquiao will reluctantly look for another opponent for his next bout after promoter Bob Arum’s deadline for a deal with Floyd Mayweather Jnr passed over the weekend without a word from Mayweather.
In the latest twist in the torturous negotiations for the most tantalising prospective fight in boxing, Arum said that Mayweather’s camp simply hasn’t responded to a contract proposal with no obvious points of contention.
Pacquiao has already agreed to extensive drug testing and an equitable split of the earnings from what’s likely to be the richest fight in boxing history.
“Floyd, for whatever reason – and I’m sure he has some valid reason – didn’t want to commit,” Arum said.
Although Arum was careful not to criticise Mayweather, saying that the fighter who calls himself Money could take the incredibly lucrative offer at any point in the next week or so, Arum plans to open discussions with Antonio Margarito and Miguel Cotto for a fight with Pacquiao in November.
Pacquiao-Mayweather “is dead when we conclude a deal for Manny’s fight in November,” Arum said. “Then we’re contractually bound to that fight and we would look to do a deal with Floyd for next year. If Floyd emerged and said he wanted to do the fight (in November), then there would be nothing opposed to doing the fight.”
Arum claims that he couldn’t wait any longer to start the time-consuming process of putting together a fight for Pacquiao, whose personal schedule has tightened up with his election to congress in his native Philippines this year. Arum said that Top Rank need several months to put together television deals and publicity tours for the bout.
Pacquiao and Mayweather are their sport’s top two stars, and a meeting would likely be worth more than $40 million (?26.1m) to each fighter. They’ve discussed a bout for several months since Mayweather’s return from a brief retirement, but haven’t made a deal.
Although he hasn’t spoken directly to Mayweather, Arum believes the former pound-for-pound champion might be reluctant because of the legal woes of Roger Mayweather, his uncle and longtime trainer. Roger Mayweather will go on trial in Las Vegas next month on assault charges stemming from an altercation with a female boxer last year.
“It would be a shame if it didn’t happen, but I don’t think (anybody) should be too harsh on Floyd in this situation,” Arum said. “I would have liked him to communicate, but I really believe that this issue with the uncle has an effect. Putting myself in their shoes, I would feel a lot of reluctance going into this big fight without my trainer and we’re not going to know what the outcome of this criminal situation is for quite some time.”
Pacquiao is unlikely to have much trouble reaching a deal with either of the replacement opponents identified by Arum, since Cotto and Margarito are both fellow Top Rank fighters.
Pacquiao stopped Cotto last November to win the WBO welterweight title in a fairly one-sided fight, but Arum said the rematch would be at light middleweight, where Cotto rejuvenated his career by claiming the WBA title at Yankee Stadium last month. The match is enticing for Pacquiao because he could go after a title in his eighth weight class.
