Pacquiao still likely to fight Cotto next, but not in Arum’s 40,000 seat arena

By Boxing News - 01/26/2012 - Comments

Image: Pacquiao still likely to fight Cotto next, but not in Arum's 40,000 seat arenaBy Dan Ambrose: With Floyd Mayweather Jr. asking for the lion’s share of the revenue for a fight against Manny Pacquiao, it looks like the mega fight between them is off for now at least until possibly November.

Pacquiao hasn’t officially given up on the negotiations for that fight but it’s expected that his promoter Bob Arum will pull the plug by Friday and go with their backup plan, which is expected to be Miguel Cotto.

Right now, the negotiations with Cotto is at a stall point because Cotto doesn’t want to drain down to 147 to fight Pacquiao. However, this will be something that is easily fixed and the bout will go forward.

The Cotto-Pacquiao fight won’t be taking place in the outdoor arena that Arum was having built. Instead it will be at either the MGM Grand or the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas. One of the reasons why the Manny Pacquiao vs. Floyd Mayweather Jr. fight couldn’t get made was because Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum insisted that Pacquiao couldn’t fight on May 5th, the date that Mayweather had planned on fighting, because Arum was having a large temporary 40,000 seat outside arena built especially for Paquiao and Mayweather so that Arum could reel in as much money as possible.

The problem is that the date that the arena was supposed to be completed was at the end of May and that was going to leave Mayweather with only days to recover from the fight before starting his 90 day jail sentence on June 1st. This was just another reason for why the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight couldn’t get made and it looks so stupid when you think about it.

Mayweather asking for more money obviously was just as crucial but Arum unilaterally making the decision to build an arena for the fight was also a factor in the fight not being made because it made it impossible to fit Mayweather’s date. I don’t know if Arum ever was really serious about the fight because it looks really fishy to me.

If you want the fight, you don’t make up your mind to build an arena that won’t be ready until the guy you’re trying to match your fighter up with is about to go to jail. That just reeks of someone that didn’t really want the fight but wanted an excuse not to make in order to save his fighter from possibly getting beaten.



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