By Jim Dower: WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao isn’t known for his trash talking of his opponents, which is why it kind of came out of left field to see Pacquiao taking some shots at WBA/WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr (46-0, 26 KOs) this week in an interview.
Pacquiao not only said that he thinks Mayweather is ducking him in order to protect his unbeaten record, but he also spoke about Mayweaher’s education, and that was kind of unusual move for Pacquiao because he’s usually not the type to go for the throat when talking about fighters.
“I think I finally understand him,” Pacquiao said to NJ.com. “What he says, how he acts, and I don’t like it. But what I learned and heard from him, well, I realize why he is like that. I understand when people are not educated they just talk to talk. He sets a very bad example.”
What’s interesting here is that Mayweather hasn’t made any recent comments about Pacquiao to set him off in any way. If you look at the recent news, Mayweather has been saying nothing about Pacquiao. He didn’t even mention him during the recent All Access: Mayweather vs. Maidana 2 on Showtime.
If Mayweather had taken some shots at Pacquiao, you could kind of understand why Pacquiao might want to take some retaliatory shots back, but that’s not what’s happened. It just looks like Pacquiao has been storing things up all this time and he just decided to unwind in the interview with NJ.com.
One reason why Pacquiao might be unloading on Mayweather is out of frustration. Pacquiao has wanted a big mega fight against Mayweather for 5 years now, and the money that he could get for a fight against him would be huge. If Pacquiao still owed tax money, he could pay a high percentage of it with the money he got from a Mayweather fight.
It’s unknown if Pacquiao’s comments are getting to Mayweather enough to make him want to deal with Top Rank. Mayweather does seem to want to fight Pacquiao, but what he don’t know is if he wants to bad enough to want to sit down with Top Rank and negotiate a fight. Freddie Roach has been saying negative things about Mayweather for a while and it hasn’t led to Pacquiao getting a fight.
Mayweather is the A-side now and it doesn’t seem to matter what Pacquiao or Roach say, because he sees them as the B-side just like all the rest of the fighters that want to fight him.
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