Pacquiao: If Mayweather beats Ortiz, we can fight

By Boxing News - 06/08/2011 - Comments

Image: Pacquiao: If Mayweather beats Ortiz, we can fightBy Chris Williams: Manny Pacquiao is pleased that Floyd Mayweather Jr. will be facing southpaw WBC welterweight champion Victor Ortiz on September 17th. Pacquiao sees this as a sign that Mayweather wants to fight him in the near future, and this makes Pacquiao happy because it could mean that there will be a Pacquiao-Mayweather fight in 2012.

Speaking with the Manila Bulletin, Pacquiao said “That’s good [referring to news that Mayweather is battling Ortiz]. Ortiz is a southpaw like me, so I think Mayweather is preparing. If he gets past Ortiz [then a fight can be made.”

I’m not so sure about that. A fight against Ortiz doesn’t mean that a fight against Pacquiao will be made. There are many hurdles that need to be overcome before Mayweather will face Pacquiao, starting with the Olympic style blood testing that Mayweather wants Pacquiao to agree to before he’ll face him. Pacquiao will likely have to agree to the full blood testing before Mayweather will fight him, and it’s unclear whether Pacquiao will agree to that. That’s the first problem. The second problem is the purse split.

Mayweather might want a larger cut. If he doesn’t, then this can be quickly agreed on. However, if there are weight penalties asked for from Pacquiao’s side then I can see Mayweather not agreeing to that. Also, Mayweather may not want to take the fight if feels he’s being dictated to and bossed around. You have to play nice with Mayweather if you want to get a fight with him because he arguably is boxing’s biggest star. If Pacquiao’s promoter comes at Mayweather the wrong way then we’ll likely not see a Pacquiao-Mayweather fight anytime soon, if ever.

However, if there are Mayweather-Pacquiao negotiations, Pacquiao’s team needs to stick it out next time and not quickly abandon the negotiations to fight another one of the Top Rank stable fighters. When they came close to making a fight in 2010, Pacquiao’s team gave up and moved on perhaps too quickly to a fight against Top Rank fighter Joshua Clottey. They might have thought that they could resume negotiations with Mayweather after that in house fight, but that wasn’t to be. They need to stick it out and not pull out another lesser name from the hat to keep the money rolling in.



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