By Chris Williams: Bob Arum has dismissed the idea of letting his fighter WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao fight Floyd Mayweather Jr. on May 5th in an interview conducted earlier today by Sports Illustrated.
Arum says that Pacquiao agrees with his decision not to let him fight Mayweather due to the bigger money they could make in the larger outside arena that won’t be completed until the end of May.
Arum said to Sports Illustrated “He [Pacquiao] realizes that the May 5th date is not smart. If you postpone it two or three weeks, you can make so much more money.”
Mayweather will have to look at other possibilities for May 5th, such as Saul Alvarez, Sergio Martinez, Andre Berto, Marcos Maidana, etc. Mayweather isn’t interested in fighting Robert Guerrero, so he’s definitely out.
Arum will now go with his original plan of matching Pacquiao with Timothy Bradley, Miguel Cotto, Lamont Peterson or Juan Manuel Marquez for a bout that will take place on June 9th in the outside arena that Arum is having built on the Las Vegas strip.
It’s anyone’s guess who Pacquiao will fight next, but most boxing fans feel that Arum will go ahead and match him with one of his Top Rank fighters, either Bradley or Cotto. The bigger money fighter is Cotto by far but Arum could also go with Bradley in order to increase his long term worth to Top Rank. By matching Bradley with Pacquiao it’s the equivalent of being put in a high level job and helps Bradley make bigger money in future fights against anyone. This in turn helps Arum and Top Rank because Bradley will then be more valuable. It sometimes works that way but it doesn’t if a fighter doesn’t put in a good performance or just stops fighting altogether after getting a payday, which is what Joshua Clottey pretty much did after his losing effort against Pacquiao in 2010. Clottey has only fought once since then.
Andy Lee could pull out of March 17th card to look for bigger fight
Middleweight contender Andy Lee (27-1, 19 KO’s) may choose to pull out of his fight on March 17th undercard of the Sergio Martinez vs. Matthew Macklin undercard in order to look for a bigger fight, according to Dan Rafael’s twitter. Lee, 27, still doesn’t have an opponent picked out for his next fight and there have been a number of good but not great opponents mentioned for that date. If Lee does back out of the card, unbeaten super middleweight contender Edwin Rodriguez (20-0, 14 KO’s) may move into Lee’s place and take on Don George. That’s a good fight but it’s obviously going to be a huge loss if Lee is taken off the card, because the fight is taking place at New York’s Madison Square Garden and a lot of Irish boxing fans will be there.
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