By Chris Williams: Top Rank promoter Bob Arum gave an off the wall answer to a British reporter who asked him if a Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Manny Pacquiao dream match could be made between the two fighters. Arum then compared Mayweather to Adolf Hitler, the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1934 to 1945, in using an example in why a Pacquiao-Mayweather fight can’t take place. Arum had previously used this example in an interview with ESPN not long ago, but it was surprising that he would use the example again after the criticism that came from that.
Asked by the Telegraph if a Pacquiao-Mayweather fight were possible in the future, Arum said “This really reminds me of what Hitler did before the Second World War: Give me a piece of Czechoslovakia and there’ll be peace. Give me this, give me that and there’ll be peace… Manny knows that Mayweather doesn’t want to fight him and he knows that making one concession after another – and God knows he’s made plenty of concessions – this is not rocket science. If Mayweather wants to fight, let’s sit down in a room and negotiate the fight.”
It’s pretty sad that Arum sees things in those terms rather than him recognizing that he had a great chance of making the fight in 2010 when Mayweather merely asked for random blood testing for the fight to get made, and a 50-50 deal. The fight wasn’t made and Arum went ahead and quickly matched Pacquiao up against Joshua Clottey in a fight that drew less than impressive pay per view numbers compared to some of Pacquiao’s other fights.
Mayweather later offered Pacquiao a big $40 million deal to fight him, but that offer wasn’t accepted. Pacquiao wanted a 50-50 deal. He then went off and was knocked out in the 6th round by Juan Manuel Marquez in 2012 for much less than the money Mayweather had offered the Filipino fighter.
In hindsight, I’m sure Pacquiao has to realize that it would have been better for him to take the $40 million in a loss to Mayweather than it would in making a little over $20 million in a knockout loss to Juan Manuel Marquez in a 4th fight with him. That’s not good business sense. Not only did Pacquiao make less money, he also failed to fight someone new to give his career a shot in the arm. Having Pacquiao stuck fighting the same guys again and again can’t be good for his career.
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