By John F. McKenna (McJack): Although many boxing fans are still hoping that the so called “Mega Fight” between undefeated superstar World Boxing Council (WBC) welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. (42-0, 26 KO’s) and Filipino icon WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao (54-3-2, 38 KO’s) comes to fruition it is becoming increasingly clear to boxing insiders that such a fight will never happen.
The endless saga and ongoing drama of who is ducking who has become boring to more and, more fans who now realize that they have been duped by the powers that be in the world of boxing. The saga has played out for way too long and there is enough blame to go around for everyone as to why the fight has not happened thus far.
It is clear that at various times Top Rank CEO Bob Arum has appeared to play a part in not making the fight happen. This was particularly true after Manny Pacquiao’s sub standard performance against WBO/WBA lightweight champion Juan Manuel Marquez (53-6-1, 39 KO’s) last November. Up to that point it appeared that Arum was more than willing to risk putting his cash cow up against Mayweather. After the Marquez fight Arum seemed to become aware of Pacquiao’s vulnerability against a counter puncher. A counter puncher who had shut out the same fighter in Marquez that “Pacman” had so mightily struggled against.
When Arum met with Pacquiao early in January of this year, he supposedly let it be known to his promoter that he wanted the Mayweather fight. Still Arum appeared to be dragging his feet and coming up with excuses not to make the fight everyone wanted to see happen.
Mayweather for his part was only too willing to put all the blame on Arum. Back in November of last year, Floyd reserved the MGM Grand Arena in Las Vegas for May 5 of this year for a fight with who the Mayweather camp would only describe as “the little fella”. It was vague at best, but many of “Money” Mayweather’s hardcore fans took it as evidence that Floyd did in fact want to fight Pacquiao.
Then Floyd elected to call out Manny on his Twitter account rather than engage in honest to goodness negotiations. Everyone has heard of Mayweather’s challenge to the “Pacman” to “Step up punk!” Mayweather’s fans ate it up, but it was all done for public consumption and was a way for Floyd to maintain his relevance with his fan base. Floyd made no effort to engage in a serious dialogue.
When Mayweater did call Pacquiao on the phone he offered Manny a cool $40 million. Sure $40 million is a lot of money and again Floyd’s fans predictably ate it up. The catch was however that Mayweather would get to keep the approximately $160 million in Pay Per View (PPV) revenue. Surely Floyd knew that his offer would be rejected by Pacquiao. In essence it was Mayweather’s way of turning down a fight with his number one nemesis Manny Pacquiao.
In the end Mayweather chose the faded WBA light middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (37-2, 30 KO’s) to be his next opponent, a fighter who Floyd would not fight when he was in his prime five years ago.
Mayweather will be moving up to 154 pounds to face Cotto and more than likely, once he easily outpoints Miguel at the higher weight limit will use his new higher weight as another excuse not to fight Pacquiao. And again Mayweather’s fans will eat it up.
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