Arum: What if Pacquiao started bleeding from the first punch from Mayweather?

By Boxing News - 01/07/2012 - Comments

Image: Arum: What if Pacquiao started bleeding from the first punch from Mayweather?By Chris Williams: Promoter Bob Arum was forced to think at warp speed earlier on Friday when facing questions from ESPN writer Dan Rafael as to why Arum wouldn’t go ahead and match his fighter Manny Pacquiao up with Floyd Mayweather Jr. next on May 5th after the news broke about Mayweather’s 90-day jail sentence being delayed from January 6th to June 1st.

This would allow Mayweather to fight on May 15th, and it would let Pacquiao fight him on that date if Arum gave Pacquiao permission to take the fight. However, Arum was having none of it, saying it wasn’t possible for Pacquiao to fight that early due to his cut he sustained in his last fight against Juan Manuel Marquez not having enough time to heal. Six months is how much time the cut would have been healing if Arum were to let Pacquiao fight on May 5th, which is more than enough time for it to be properly healed.

This is what Arum said to Rafael: “What if they [Pacquiao and Mayweather] fought and Manny started bleeding on the first punch?”

Arum continued “June is more likely based on what his plastic surgeon said. I don’t even know if Mayweather will be licensed before he serves his time.”

Those are some pretty lame excuses from Arum, don’t you think? I wonder why Pacquiao isn’t standing up on his hind legs and saying something about all this? Is he okay with his promoter making excuses for him not to take a fight? It just makes me think that Pacquiao must be okay with all this if he’s not willing to step up take the reins and say he wants the fight. Of course, Pacquiao was one that wanted a 24 day cut off for the random blood tests for performance enhancing drugs when Mayweather last made a serious attempt to fight Pacquiao in 2010. The negotiations fell apart at that point.

As for Arum worrying about the Nevada State Athletic Commission not giving Mayweather his license to fight, that’s a joke. It’s a fight that would make $100 million and bring in huge money to Las Vegas, the kind of money they’ve not seen for years. Do you honestly think the Nevada commission would say no to Mayweather getting a boxing license?
Pacquiao was supposed to be available to fight in May when Mayweather was previously scheduled to be in jail during that time. But things sure changed today when it was discovered that Mayweather’s jail sentence was to be delayed.

It’s painfully obvious that Arum doesn’t want to risk putting his cash cow fighter Pacquiao in with Mayweather and have him potentially get whipped in front of the entire planet. At Pacquiao’s age, it’s unclear whether he would ever generate the kind of money that he makes now after Mayweather get through with him. I think that’s the main reason for Arum’s reluctance in putting Pacquiao in with Mayweather. It looks like Arum has some major, major doubts about Pacquiao’s ability to beat Mayweather. I guess he’s a smart guy.



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