Roach: If Pacquiao-Mayweather fight doesn’t happen in 2013, it’ll never happen

By Boxing News - 11/01/2012 - Comments

Image: Roach: If Pacquiao-Mayweather fight doesn't happen in 2013, it'll never happenBy Chris Williams: Freddie Roach, the trainer for Manny Pacquiao (54-4-2, 38 KO’s), thinks that if the Pacquiao vs. Floyd Mayweather Jr. (43-0, 26 KO’s) mega fight it will never get made at all period. Roach thinks the shelf life for the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight will expire if it’s not made by 2013.

Roach said to usatoday.com “I think if the fight doesn’t happen next year, it will never happen. People are bored and tired of. We’re chasing a rabbit we can’t catch.”

That’s interesting that Roach is putting it on Mayweather for the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight not being made when it was his own fighter Pacquiao who wouldn’t agree to the Olympic blood testing for for performance enhancing drugs that Mayweather wanted for the mega fight in 2010.

Pacquiao wanted a 24 day no testing window before the fight. That’s three and half weeks of no testing, and naturally Mayweather said no to that. He tried to get it down to 14 days, but Arum and Pacquiao opted to go in another direction by fighting Top Rank stable fighter Joshua Clottey. So there was the perfect opportunity to make the fight in 2010, but Pacquiao couldn’t agree to what Mayweather was asking. Boxing fans want to see the fight but what can Mayweather do if he’s not getting what he wants from the fight? You can’t blame him.

Recently, Mayweather offered a more than fair $40 million to Pacquiao for a mega fight, which is almost twice the amount that Pacquiao normally gets for his fights. But that wasn’t good enough for some reason. Pacquiao agreed to a 55-45 money split with Mayweather, but terms have changed now with Mayweather bringing in huge pay per view numbers for his fight with Miguel Cotto earlier this year, and Pacquiao doing much less than that in his loss to Tim Bradley last June.

So it’s natural that Mayweather would want the lion share of the revenue for a fight with Pacquiao and he would deserve it right now because he’s bringing in the better PPV numbers, is still unbeaten and is looking good still. Pacquiao hasn’t impressed since he beat Miguel Cotto in 2009. That was ages ago in boxing terms.

I don’t agree that the Mayweather vs. Pacquiao fight won’t ever happen if it doesn’t get made in 2013. It can still happen in 2014 or even 2015, as long as Pacquiao is still winning fights. I’m sure Mayweather will unbeaten for the next two years, but I just don’t know if Pacquiao will still be winning fights. He lost his last fight, and he might lose his next against Marquez in December. How can you make a Mayweather-Pacquiao fight with Pacquiao losing 24/7? That’s on him.



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