By Chris Williams: Jeff Mayweather, the uncle of WBA/WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr (46-0, 26 KO’s), says that he doesn’t see a fight between Floyd Jr and WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao (56-5-2, 38 KO’s) taking place at this point because of Floyd Jr’s reluctance to work with Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum, and because Pacquiao turned the fight down on two prior occasions when it was offered to him.
Jeff says that a Pacquiao-Mayweather fight wouldn’t mean as much now because he feels that Pacquiao is living off of his past accomplishments that he compiled in a short 2-year window of time between 2008 and 2010, when he was knocking almost everybody in easily beating Oscar De La Hoya, Ricky Hatton Miguel Cotto, Shane Mosley and Joshua Clottey. Of those fighters, Pacquiao knocked out Hatton, Cotto, and De La Hoya.
Speaking about a Pacquiao-Mayweather fight, Jeff said to esnewsreporting.com “It’s a fight that could still possibly happen, but at the same time it probably won’t happen, because if Floyd would do it, it probably would be for the fans. Unfortunately him and Bob Arum don’t do business together. People seem to forget Pacquiao turned down the fight twice. Pacquiao is still living off of what he did many years ago when he had that run beating Cotto, beating Ricky Hatton, beating De La Hoya, and Margarito.”
So what Jeff is saying here is that it’s no longer the Pacquiao that was in his prime at this point, and that it’s not nearly as interesting fight any longer for Mayweather to take. The knockouts from 2,000 yesterday’s ago have dried out for Pacquiao. He hasn’t scored a knockout in 5 long years since his stoppage win over Cotto in 2009, and that streak is likely going to continue unless Arum finds a soft job for him to get a sure thing KO.
Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach still predicts a knockout in each of his fights, but the knockouts never come anymore, and Roach increasingly comes across as out of touch.
Mayweather might do it for the fans in 2015 as a going away present before he retires from the sport. He’s down to the last three fights of his contract with Showtime, and he’s said that he plans on retiring after the contract is up. The thing is Mayweather already beat everyone that’s worth fighting and now he’s at the point where he’s going over old ground in a rematch with Marcos Maidana.
It’s possible we could see Mayweather fight Cotto or Saul “Canelo” Alvarez in rematches in 2015. Pacquiao could be a substitute for one of those fighters if Mayweather is interested in giving the fans a special gift. He already said that he has a big surprise for them for his May fight, and that might be him giving Pacquiao a fight as long as he’s open to the random blood testing that Mayweather will want.
Pacquiao would also need to agree to the purse split offered to him by Mayweather. It’s possible he might get a decent offer from Mayweather in terms of the purse split, but definitely not anything close to a 50-50 deal.
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