Shows you what I know. In my latest ’15 Rounds’ column, I doubted that Marco Antonio Barrera would ever face Juan Manuel Marquez.
Well, on Tuesday afternoon, Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer would tell Maxboxing, “Barrera is going to fight Juan Manuel Marquez, March 17th, Mandalay Bay.”
And it’s a done deal?
“Yep.” (Now, I have no reason not to believe him and we’ll take him on his word, even based on this company’s recent history of jumping the gun on announcements made in press releases.)
Bob Arum had made an opening offer to Golden Boy to have Barrera face Manny Pacquiao for $2.5 million with pay-per-view upside.
What’s Top Rank’s plan B?
“We’re going to go ahead with the fight in Macau,” said Arum, who plans to promote that event in April.
As for his thoughts on Barrera-Marquez, Arum would say: “So what? Who gives a s**t? He has to give up his title (WBC jr. lightweight). Humberto Soto will fight for the vacant title and that’s fine. And that’s the end of Barrera.”
When asked to explain his company’s line of thinking in eschewing a bout with Pacquiao in favor of Marquez, Schaefer would state, “I think Pacquiao and the people around him who are influencing him are being very naive because he feels he can just come and say, ‘Oh, I can just fight in April’ and the whole world is going to dance around him because Manny Pacquiao wants to fight in April. It doesn’t work like that. We had a date in March for Barrera and frankly, I didn’t want to lose that date.
“Because that pay-per-view date which is being discussed is April 14th for Winky Wright and Jermain Taylor, and for Bob Arum to go out there – first of all, Bob has no business negotiating anything with Pacquiao any way because he’s not his legal promoter – to make these comments, remarks and offers, whatever, I think is a bit out of place. But being as it is, I didn’t want to lose the date and then in the end Barrera has no date and is going to sit around because May is going to be Oscar and a host of different fights are being discussed. Then in July, Bernard Hopkins is going to come back.
“I didn’t want to be under pressure, and we needed to fulfill certain pay-per-view deadlines for the March pay-per-view.”
So instead of Pacquiao-Barrera perhaps being a starting point for these two arch-rivals to at least have a working – if not friendly – relationship, the tug-of-war for Pacquiao has seemingly put an even wider schism between the two factions.
Last week in the Philippines, ‘the Pac Man’ would state his allegiance to Top Rank – even though he had signed a promotional pact with Golden Boy this past September prior to his third encounter with Erik Morales. After his sensational third-round stoppage of ‘El Terrible’ at the post-fight press conference at the Cox Pavilion inside the Thomas and Mack Center, he would then announce he had inked a deal with Arum’s company.
Olive Oyl, Popeye and Brutus never had a love triangle this convoluted and drawn out. Despite Pacquiao’s proclimation last week, Golden Boy is still steadfast in their belief that they hold his promotional rights.
“No question about it,” stated Schaefer. “No doubts.”
But the reason why Pacquiao prefers Top Rank is clear according to Arum.
“There’s one specific reason,” he says, “and that is we have the track record. We have the track record for building guys into being superstars. Now, we don’t have the track record for getting guys at the end of their careers and signing them – that we don’t. But the proof of the pudding is the De La Hoya-Mayweather fight. Both of them are guys we developed, and Miguel Cotto, and Hagler before that. There’s a whole track record and they understood that. They’re not silly people. They know we’re going to do whatever we can – and I believe it’s going to be a lot – to make Manny Pacquiao an international celebrity.”
Outside the ring, the discontent between boxing’s version of the Hatfields and McCoys grows.
“I’m not dealing with a boxing guy,” Arum would say of his counterpart. “I’m dealing with a guy who has really – and I say this in a kind way – has no real experience in the boxing business. And really has no concept of what I’m talking about, what I’m trying to do and all that sorta stuff. Because if he did, he would sit down and work out a deal.”
Arum doesn’t expect any legal entanglements that would prohibit Pacquiao from fighting in April.
“Anything that is open to be resolved can be solved with money damages,” he says.
But while Top Rank and Golden Boy won’t be making any fights together inside the ring, they could be duking it out in the courtroom.
“It certainly is shaping up as a fight,” admitted Schaefer. “I don’t know who he’s going to fight now or what he’s going to do but we believe we have a legal, binding contract with Manny Pacquiao and we intend to enforce that.”
