Call me a cockeyed optimist if you must. Perhaps it is just a midsummer’s night dream. But I get the persistent feeling, almost like an itch, when I think about the Floyd Mayweather Jr.-Manny Pacquiao Lolapalooza Fight To End All Fights.
The politicians finally resolved, at least temporarily, the debt ceiling. Why can’t the opposing camps in boxing raise the fight ceiling?
Notice I did not call it The Fight To Save Boxing as the dreary “Businessman’s Special” conducted by and between Mr. “Money” Mayweather and Oscar De La Hoya used up that nickname.
Really, think on it…fast foward to Nov. 13, a day after Pacman has pulverized or at least taken a controversy free victory over too small Juan Manuel Marquez and four days shy of a month after Mayweather has tested vibrant and Vicious Victor Ortiz and found him wanting, what else then do the Pacman and Mayweather camps have to do?
Reading between the lines, I now get the feeling that the only thing that will stop Bob Arum and Al Haymon from sitting down and making the Super Fight is their own reluctance to stage it in May of 2012.
I spoke to Arum about this on Tuesday and when I mentioned the word “issues,” kindly Uncle Bob turned into a cantankerous old grouch.
“No, there have been no discussuons,” Arum said from his vacation hangout in the posh Hamptons.
(Call it a working vacation as Todd duBoef, TR president, is about to inform either HBO or Showtime that they have been selected to handle Marquez-Pacquiao III on PPV TV, while meanwhile Brad Jacobs spent a week in the Philippines handling logistics for the ambitious press tour for that fight (Dubai was scratched, it’s going to be Manila, New York, Los Angeles and Mexico City for this dog and pony expedition) and East Coast honcho Carl Moretti was lunching at Harry Caray’s in Chicago with legeendary Notre Dame football coach Ara Parseghian about a Mike Lee fight on campus, first ever pro fight show at the home of the Fighting Irish.)
“And,” Arum said, “there are no issues.”
I was momentarily stunned by that assertion but picked up my gumshield and moved forward.
“No issues, Bob, what about the drug testing?” I said.
“You tell me me what at are the issues,” Arum said.
“Drug testing and who handles it,” I said weakly.
“There are no issues on that,” Arum said. “We accepted the drug testing. That is not a real issue of any kind.” Hey, wait a minute big fella, what about the WADA/USADA dustups?
