By Chris Williams: Manny Pacquiao could probably get the biggest payday of his career against Floyd Mayweather Jr if he were to leave Top Rank at the end of 2014 when his contract with them expires, but Pacquiao doesn’t look like he’s interested in doing that judging by his comments today in an interview. Pacquiao says he has no problems with his relationship with his promoter Bob Arum, and he thinks that Mayweather simply doesn’t want to fight him.
“Right now, I don’t have issues [with his promoter],” Pacquiao said to the LA Times. “I’m the kind of person that doesn’t look to make changes…I’ve only had one trainer. I never change. We have a good relationship with Top Rank, with Bob…The truth is, he [Mayweather] doesn’t have interest in fighting me. It’s not about the promoter.”
I bet Pacquiao’s former strength and conditioning coach Alex Ariza might have something to say about Pacquiao’s comments about never making changes with the people working with him, because Ariza was let go recently after playing a huge part in making Pacquiao a success in moving up in weight from the lighter weights to the welterweight division.
Mayweather didn’t look afraid to fight Pacquiao in 2010 when he agreed to a 50-50 purse split, but ran into a brick wall when he tried to get Pacquiao to agree to the full random blood testing he wanted for the fight. Mayweather didn’t seem afraid of Pacquiao when he offered him $40 million to fight him in 2012, but was turned down by him, as Pacquiao wasn’t interested in that deal.
It wasn’t until recently that Mayweather said he wouldn’t agree to fight Pacquiao unless he left his promoter. Mayweather was fine with facing Pacquiao before this, but he found himself unable to make a deal with him.
At this point there really isn’t much of a need for Pacquiao and Mayweather to fight. Pacquiao has lost 2 out of his last 3 fights, and he’ll likely be losing again next month in his second fight against Tim Bradley on April 12th. Besides that, Pacquiao is stuck on a revolving circle of fighting the same guys over and over again in Arum’s Top Rank stable. Why would Mayweather want to interrupt Pacquiao’s repetitive merry-go-round of rematches against the same guys? There’s no point in Mayweather interrupting that. He’s got new people to fight, and that’s a lot more interesting for boxing fans.
As for Pacquiao, if he beats Bradley in their rematch next month, then he’ll be facing the winner of the Mike Alvarado vs. Juan Manuel Marquez fight next September. This means that we could in theory see Pacquiao fighting Marquez for a 5th time. If Pacquiao loses to Bradley, then we’ll almost surely see him and Bradley facing each other for a third time next September. As you can see, the rematches for Pacquiao will likely be a part of his future until he retires.
Mayweather has three fights left on his Showtime contract after he faces Marcos Maidana next May, and Pacquiao is definitely not going to be in his plans. That’s Pacquiao’s loss because he needs the Mayweather fight a lot more than Mayweather needs him.
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