by Robert “Big Moe” Elmore: I penned an article about Top Rank CEO Bob Arum claiming that Showtime and HBO were on board to do the Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao fight in 2015 as told to the UK-based newspaper “The Independent” on September 2nd of this year. At that time, neither Ross Greenberg (HBO sports president) nor Steve Espinoza (Showtime sports president) came forward to support Arums claims. It was later confirmed that Pac was moving back to 140 to finish his career. At least we now know that Arum’s claims that Showtime was on board were correct. According to Espinoza, three months ago, they offered Pac a minimum of 40 million dollars with a 35% percent of the pay per view upside.
Arum told fighthype.com on November 11th of this year that Floyd was reluctant to fight Manny. Floyd has not uttered a word, but it’s very clear that an offer was made. What is interesting about this offering from Espinoza to Arum is that it was offered three months ago and Arum has not answered.
My guess Arum is trying to see what the outcome of Pac’s fight with Chris Algieri will be. But make no mistakes an offer was made. So my question is; judging by the pure concrete evidence that an offer was made, why did Arum pass on the offer? My opinion is this and I will stand by it: I sincerely believe that Floyd and Pac want to fight each other. They really do. I do not think Arum wants it. Strength and conditioning coach Alex Ariza has been in both (Floyd and Pac) camps and has said both fighters want the bout to happen.
I’m not going to indulge myself with the past remarks by both fighters because it will be a waste of time. I’m dealing with right here; right now. And now, there is a 40 million dollar minimum offer plus 35% of the pay per view revenue that was made to Top Rank which was turned down by Arum.
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