By Chris Williams: Top Rank promoter Bob Arum admitted in an interview with TMZ that he doesn’t see his prize #1 fighter Manny Pacquiao ever facing Floyd Mayweather Jr. Arum doesn’t say why but it seems pretty easy to spell out the reasons, which likely have to do with the purse split. Arum says that he’ll look to put Pacquiao back in with Juan Manuel Marquez for a fifth fight next year and that’s not that surprising because their fight earlier this month ended in Pacquiao getting knocked out.
However, it wasn’t a total loss, as the fight did really well on pay per view with a total of 1.15 million buys accumulated thus far. A fifth fight will likely bring in even more cash for all of them, but it might end badly for Pacquiao if he gets hit hard again by Marquez.
Arum said to TMZ.com “We’re gonna, I think, do another fight with Juan Manuel Marquez. That was a great fight. He [Pacquiao] ran into a really good right hand, and we’ll see what happens next time.”
When asked if Pacquiao will ever face Floyd Mayweather Jr., Arum said “Probably not, but life goes on.”
Arum had the chance to make that fight in 2010, but Pacquiao and Mayweather Jr. couldn’t agree on the drug testing for the fight.
Marquez may finish any idea of Pacquiao ever facing Mayweather by knocking Pacquiao out again. If Pacquiao loses to Marquez next year, it’ll be the third straight loss for Pacquiao and that obviously will make a Mayweather-Pacquiao fight undoable because Mayweather will see these losses and give Pacquiao a much lower money split in a fight between them.
Arum can’t very well ask for a 50-50 deal or even a 45-55 deal with Mayweather if Pacquiao is losing over and over again, and I don’t think Arum or Pacquiao would agree to anything less than that in a fight deal with Mayweather. From Mayweather’s perspective, why would you want to give a struggling fighter an even pay cut when he’s no longer winning? It doesn’t make sense.
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