Reporters from around the Tribune Co. weigh in on the topic. Check back throughout the day for more responses and feel free to leave a comment of your own.
Lance Pugmire, Los Angeles Times
This is an unknown for now, requiring the ability to read a mind. The mind needing to be read is Floyd Mayweather Jr.?s, a skill that borders on impossible, even for those close to the unbeaten boxer.
For now, we?ve been told Mayweather is in vacation mode, enjoying the lifestyle he earned by pummeling Shane Mosley on May 1 and earning $25 million, which we hear he is happily spending.
Mayweather clearly wasn?t compelled to act by the Friday midnight deadline set by Manny Pacquiao?s promoter, Bob Arum, to express interest in the proposed mega-fight, and now Arum is moving his Filipino star toward an alternate fight Nov. 13 against Antonio Margarito or Miguel Cotto.
Of course, the money that Mayweather and Pacquiao will generate by fighting each other will one day prove too impossible to reject. Mayweather?s spending habits will force him to recognize this, Pacquiao?s fear of a blood test will mysteriously vanish, and the super-fight will have more than a year of crazed fan anxiety to maximize pay-per-view dollars and ensure a live-gate sellout no matter how much tickets cost.
Check back early next year, with a fight date in place by the end of May 2011.
George Diaz, Orlando Sentinel
Floyd Mayweather?s la-di-da attitude about facing Manny Pacquiao in the mother of all super-fights is the reason pro boxing is getting it?s butt kicked by MMA. The sport is on a suicidal run, all of the major players apparently not interested in saving themselves.
But even the drunk eventually wake up sober. The fight is going to happen.
It will happen because the pile of money the fighters could have split is staggering. Each guy stands to make between $25 million to $40 million.
Somebody twists little Floyd?s arm to make him understand the consequences of his actions. Free choice, you ask? I suppose it?s OK to turn down $40 million. But in the macho-man sport world of pro boxing, maybe Little Floyd has some other concerns.
Like having Pac Man slap his arrogant face around, knocking off the invincibility of the man who professes to be the toughest pound-for-pound hombre on the planet.
Take off your diapers and come out and play, Floyd.
