NEW YORK ? Manny Pacquiao said Thursday that he very much wanted to meet Jeremy Lin during his trip to Manhattan this week to promote his June 9 fight against Timothy Bradley.
Pacquiao is a big basketball fan, but the Filipino superstar’s hectic schedule wouldn’t permit him to spend time with the NBA’s newest sensation. The conversation inevitably shifted toward another face-to-face meeting Pacquiao hasn’t been able to arrange.
Even his children these days are asking when Pacquiao is going to finally fight Floyd Mayweather Jr.
“My kids, the youngest one is 11 years old,” Pacquiao said after a news conference at Chelsea Piers. “He said, ‘Daddy, I want you to retire. But before you retire, I have one request.’ I told him, ‘What is that?’ He said, ‘Give me one fight. You fight Mayweather, and then you beat him and then you retire.’
“I want that fight to happen. ? But the problem is he really doesn’t want the fight. But maybe some other time he’ll want the fight.”
Mayweather last month made it seem he was more ready than ever to make what likely would be the most lucrative event in boxing history a reality. The undefeated five-division champion went as far as to call Pacquiao to suggest cutting out the middle men and talk numbers.
“He called me in the Philippines,” Pacquiao said. “I told him, ‘Let’s make the fight happen.’ I told him, ‘I’m happy with [a] 50-50 [purse split]. And whatever your request is for the blood-testing, no problem, as long as you agree to 50-50.’ And he said, ‘Let’s do this. I give you this amount and no more pay-per-view for you.’ Then after that, I gave [the phone to adviser Michael Koncz].”
Koncz said Thursday that Pacquiao sent him back to the United States to talk more with Mayweather.
Koncz met with Mayweather three times before realizing Mayweather wasn’t going to make what they felt was a fair financial agreement.
“The final offer that was given to Floyd was a $50 million guarantee,” Koncz said, “and a split of the [overall] revenue would be 45-55 [to the winner]. Manny said, ‘Let’s make it a prize fight,’ so the winner would get a prize.”
A Pacquiao-Mayweather showdown would be expected to shatter boxing’s pay-per-view record of 2.45 million buys, established by Mayweather and Oscar De La Hoya in May 2007.
“It’s OK with me if he has a bigger guarantee,” Pacquiao said, “and [I have] a smaller guarantee, but as long as it’s 50-50, the sharing of the pay-per-view.”
Pacquiao (54-3-2, 38 KOs) said he hopes to fight Mayweather (42-0, 26 KOs) in November, but Mayweather must defeat Puerto Rico’s Miguel Cotto (37-2, 30 KOs) on May 5 at MGM Grand in Las Vegas, and Pacquiao has to beat Bradley five weeks later at the same venue to make that a possibility.
Pacquiao is heavily favored against Bradley (28-0, 12 KOs, one NC), but he expects to be tested by the determined Palm Springs, Calif., native
