By Chris Williams: Last Monday night, WBA/WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr (46-0, 26 KO’s) revealed who his next opponent will be for his September 13th fight in naming Marcos Maidana (35-4, 31 KO’s) as the guy who will be standing across from him in the ring at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. But Mayweather also said “Then in May, I’ll have a big surprise for you.” There’s only one opponent that could fit the description of it being a “big surprise” and that’s Manny Pacquiao.
Pacquiao’s the only one that will interest boxing fans enough to be a “big surprise.”
Mayweather couldn’t be talking about Amir Khan, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, Miguel Cotto, Kell Brook, Shawn Porter, Erislandy Lara or Keith Thurman as a big surprise, because he’s already beaten Canelo and Cotto, and the other fighters bring nothing to the table. As much as I like those fighters, they’re clearly a step down from Maidana as far as generating fan interest.
If Mayweather is fighting Pacquiao, it’s going to be a huge fight and he would definitely be controlling the May 2nd Cinco de Mayo fight date. Bob Arum of Top Rank recently said that he wants to match Cotto against Canelo on May 2nd next year. This is a move that shows that Arum isn’t afraid of competing with Mayweather for the Cinco de Mayo fight date on May 2nd, but if Mayweather faces Pacquiao on that date, Arum will either have to stick the Canelo-Cotto fight on the undercard as the co-feature or move the fight to a different date.
It’s not going to be possible for the Cotto-Canelo fight to take place on the Mayweather undercard on May 2nd, because the money that both Cotto and Canelo will be asking for from this fight will be far too much to justify putting them on the undercard. Arum will obviously be very pleased if Mayweather agrees to fight Pacquiao, because it would easily be the biggest money fight that Arum has ever been involved with.
The green stuff from that fight will be huge for all those involved, and it’s quite possible it could break the pay-per-view record of 2.4 million buys set by Mayweather and Oscar De La Hoya back in 2007.
Mayweather will be down to his last 2 fights on his Showtime contract by the time he fights in May of next year, and it makes sense for him to fight someone like Pacquiao while he still can, because the money that he’ll lose by not fighting Pacquiao will be huge. Mayweather could end up making an additional $10-20 million on top of what he already has been making for his recent fights if he faces the Filipino star.
Comments are closed.