For the first time in months it is fight week in Las Vegas as the city of Nevada is starting to again pick up a little bit of buzz. The festivies this weekend will take place at the Mandalay Bay this Saturday night as Juan Manuel Marquez will look to successfully defend his WBA and WBO lightweight belt?s against former champion Juan Diaz. The fight is a rematch of 2009?s fight of the year in which Marquez overcame a spirited early round assault from Diaz before starching his then 25-year old counterpart in the 9th.
The Golden Boy Promotions pay-per-view event features an extremely solid undercard as Brooklyn?s Danny Jacobs faces Russia?s Dmitry Pirog in a WBO Super Middleweight title bout, former sensation Jorge Linares returns to the spotlight against rugged Rocky Juarez, and Robert ?The Ghost? Guerrero pits his offensive attack against the guile and craft of former two-division champion Joel Casamayor.
On Tuesday of this week seven of the eight fighters made their grand arrivals to the city with Juarez being the lone absentee as the Houston, Texas fighter was late for reasons unbeknownst. While the card figures to be a solid show the event definitely doesn?t have the interest of your typical Vegas extravaganza and if anything media members and fans at the arrivals were talking up a whole different kind of topic in relation to the recent fallout between Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr.
It has been well documented how everything played out. With negotiations reportedly taking place behind closed doors Top Rank promoter Bob Arum revealed that Pacquiao was on board and ready to fight and issued a mid-July deadline for Mayweather to respond. Arum would move on to other options, soon announcing that Antonio Margarito was going to be filling the void instead. Floyd Mayweather was questioned heavily for his silence throughout the whole process and people were simply dying to hear a response from him one way or another.
On July 19th Mayweather?s advisor Leonard Ellerbe would issue a statement saying that no negotiations ever took place, a claim that was backed up by Golden Boy’s president Oscar De La Hoya and CEO Richard Schaefer, both of whom work closely with Mayweather. However earlier this week HBO president Ross Greenburg cleared the air and let the world know that he served as a mediator between both Team Mayweather and Team Pacquiao in an attempt to negotiate and get the fight made, putting De La Hoya and Schaefer into question for their recent actions.
At the grand arrivals Schaefer could be seen talking in depth for several minutes with Yahoo! Sports columnist Kevin Iole. Schaefer spoke at close range with Iole and seemed to have much to get off of his chest. Nothing he could say would sway Iole?s opinion on the recent developments, however, as he is steadfast in his belief that Mayweather is avoiding Manny Pacquiao at the moment.
?[It] forever eliminated any doubt about Mayweather?s intention,? Iole stated in a recent article that dropped mere hours after he spoke with Schaefer. ?He?s ducking Manny Pacquiao. There can be no other rational explanation.?
ESPN and Reuters correspondent Kieran Mulvaney would hit the scene moments later. Always a fixture during big Vegas events, Mulvaney feels that Mayweather has too much going on in his head to focus on fighting at the moment.
?I don’t think Floyd ever wanted the fight,? Mulvaney stated. ?I don’t think he had ever intention of taking the fight, and I doubt he ever seriously engaged in any discussions on the fight. I don’t know that he was specifically looking to evade Pacquiao, although it is starting to look like it, or whether he just simply didn’t want to fight, period. I don’t think he really enjoys fighting that much anymore. I think it’s more a means to an end – money, the maintenance of fame – for him now. He doesn’t feel like he has to prove anything else in the ring. He just earned a fat wad of cash for beating Shane Mosley so I doubt he feels the urgency to step back into the ring against anyone.?
One man who wasn?t as harsh on Mayweather but who was equally disappointed is photo journalist Chris Cozzone, a regular contributor to www.FightNews.com. In giving his take on the situation Cozzone feels that this was a blow that boxing simply couldn?t afford at the moment and that it could eventually spiral into something of greater concern.
?Never mind who is to blame, who dropped the ball, and who, really, is reluctant to fight,? Cozzone stated. ?The entire fiasco makes everyone, and that includes every single hardcore boxing fan, look like morons. Bottom line is, this is a fight that will save or bury boxing, at least for the present era, and the games that are being played disrespect this great sport and every fan who dreams of this must-happen showdown. Personally, if I could shake my love for the sport, I’d jump on the UFC/MMA bandwagon in a minute. I cannot help but wonder just how many fans have already done so in the last several years.?
Iole suffered some criticism a few months back when the latest Yahoo! pound for pound rankings had catapulted Mayweather to the top of the list on the basis of his dominant victory over Shane Mosley on May 1st at the MGM Grand. It should be noted that Iole simply compiled the rankings on behalf of Yahoo! by gathering the thoughts of several media members worldwide but regardless he was looked at by some as too firm of a Mayweather supporter. Hearing Iole further dig into Mayweather in his latest piece shows how adamant he is about the whole situation.
?Mayweather was nowhere to be found on Monday, still on vacation, apparently oblivious to the millions of boxing fans desperate to hear a word about his intentions,? he continued. ?If Mayweather cared about his legacy, if he cared about the sport that has made him rich and famous, he wouldn?t have been invisible the last few weeks while allowing Ellerbe to spew a lot of mumbo jumbo.?
One alarming note that Iole brings up is the fact that Greenburg has had a severed relationship with Arum in the past while actually working closely with Golden Boy Promotions in recent years. Seeing that Greenburg went out of his way to back up Arum?s claims further casts doubt onto everyone on the side of Team Mayweather.
Perhaps summing it up best is Mulvaney, who notes that Mayweather basically has reached somewhat of a dead end in his career if the Pacquiao fight doesn?t go through. In closing Mulvaney notes that for the moment Floyd Mayweather Jr. simply isn?t ready to fight.
?Floyd’s image has definitely taken a hit. Outside of challenging Sergio Martinez, I don’t think he has only two viable options: Fight nobody; or fight Pacquiao. Shane Mosley was a completely legitimate alternative opponent to Pacquiao. Andre Berto, candidly, isn’t. Personally, I just don’t think he wants to fight. As i wrote in a recent blog, when he changes his mind, when and if he decides he does want to fight, it won’t be because Arum told him Pacquiao is fighting somebody on a given date, and if you want, it can be you. It will be because he wants to fight, and he’ll want it to be on his terms, and when he’s ready.?
