By Jason Kim: Manny Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach feels that Floyd Mayweather Jr. has nowhere else to go after his fight against WBA junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto next month other than to finally get in the ring with Pacquiao. However, Mayweather says Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum is to blame for them not having fought already. Roach wants the fight, but it looks like there’s still some barriers that need to be removed before they can settle things once and for all.
Roach told the Latimes.com “There’s nowhere else for them to go.”
Mayweather, however, said “No, I don’t think it’s going to happen. It’s because of Bob Arum. It’s not my fault.”
It looks like there’s plenty of blame to go around for the fight not getting made last time out. To be sure, Arum sure didn’t seem all that interested in having his fighter Pacquiao take on Mayweather. You could get an idea with the constantly changing excuses that Arum was making, such as there’s enough time for the outdoor arena to be build, Mayweather might not get his boxing license, there’s not enough time to market the fight, I don’t know who Mayweather’s management representative is, I don’t know who to talk to…etc.
Mayweather also contributed to the problem by asking for more than a 50-50 deal. Naturally, Pacquiao would never agree to that, not with what he’s accomplished over the year. I can’t even see Pacquiao agreeing to that even if he was starting to lose every now and then. I think he feels he brings in a lot of boxing fans, and his promoter likely lets him know about that when it comes time to try and bargain with Mayweather. This is obviously an impasse because Mayweather and Pacquiao aren’t going to be able to put together a fight together unless the two can agree to the money split. But at the same time, Arum needs to focus on just making the fight and not coming up with excuses like outdoor arenas, and the other things he brought up about not knowing who to contact. That just seemed weak.
Mayweather’s trainer Roger Mayweather is eager for the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight to be made, saying to the LA Times “Why wouldn’t you? There ain’t no way that guy [talking about Pacquiao] lasts five rounds against my nephew.”
Mayweather seems to be fighting at a higher level than Pacquiao now that Mayweather is staying busy. Pacquiao really struggled against Juan Manuel Marquez last November and is pretty lucky got the win. Mayweather had no problems beating Marquez with ease in 2009.
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