By Babatis Banda: All it took was Floyd Mayweather junior to tweet…” come fight me punk” and a list of excuses over the past few days have poured out, one after the other. When Floyd was sentenced to 90 days incarceration for domestic violence, it seemed a heavy load was lifted off Bob Arum and Manny Pacquiao’s head.
Arum and Pacquiao had behaved as if the fight would have taken place had it not been for Floyd’s jail time. It was reported that Manny even made comments to the effect that he was willing to fight Floyd even in jail.
When Floyd announced his availability for May 5, Arum went into an attack mode. He ‘wrote-out’ Floyd as just posturing and when he realised that people were keenly following, he started the lame excuses. He insisted that Manny had a bad cut from his fight with Marquez and that it would not have healed by May 5, while on the other hand, Manny was saying the cut was just fine. Arum said a plastic surgeon, apparently somebody dating his niece, had advised Pacman to delay his sparring sessions.
The bad news that Floyd had been committed to a 90 day prison sentence came out, and all hell broke loose. Floyd was accused of having known that he would plead guilty, and many Floyd haters including Arum had a breather, feasting on the news. Things turned out in the other direction however, and the buzz was short-lived. Floyd’s team managed to secure a deferment of the sentence to 1st June, to allow him to fight on 5th May. Arum and the tandem of haters were caught off-guard, and Floyd was again in Manny’s and Arum’s face.
The excuses came one after the other with Pac-team saying 5th of May was not ideal. Arum had to construct a whole new arena to host the fight and 5th May was not enough. The construction of a new arena was being floated, I guess for the first time if I had not missed the news. Again, we were told Manny could only fight in June, knowing too well that Floyd needed to turn himself in 1st June. Arum went into further sadism by saying that 5th May would not provide enough time to promote the fight and that it made no economic sense. We all know that even without any promotion, all what is needed is to set a date and this fight would be sold-out.
When this was not received well by many people, Roach still went ahead to say that he was waiting to be contacted by Floyd’s team. Earlier, Oscar De La Hoya had complained that Roach was not picking up his phone, as he was trying to establish some communication. News later came, that Manny was to make a decision in the following 24 hours as to who he was fighting next. Later, we were told that Manny could only fight on a 50-50 basis, while this man had boasted earlier that he was willing to take the smaller cut, just to have the fight made. Manny for whatever reason, seemed to stick to a period late May. This meant Floyd would walk into prison, sore from a fight with Manny just a few days from the fight. At some point, Arum was even speculative enough to doubt if Floyd would be granted a license by the NEVADA, despite the fact that a whole prison sentence had been delayed to allow Floyd to fight.
In my view, this whole episode has been concluded in a very clear, non-confusing fashion. Manny simply won’t fight Floyd. Arum has yet to continue milking Manny until such a time he feels he has had enough. This chapter should be closed!
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