By Chris Williams: First it was Manny Pacquiao voicing his frustration at Floyd Mayweather Jr for him not caving in and signing a contract he’s clearly not comfortable with for their May 2nd fight, but now it’s Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum’s turn at venting his frustration. Arum thinks Mayweather is running from Pacquiao and possibly on the verge of backing out of the fight.
Arum wants Mayweather to just give in and sign the contract, because Arum says he and Pacquiao have agreed to all the negotiation points that Mayweather asked for in the contract.
Obviously, there’s something that us boxing fans aren’t aware of when it comes to the negotiations, because if Arum and Pacquiao had truly agreed to everything that Mayweather asked, he’d likely have gladly put pen on paper by now.
Speaking Fightnews.com, Arum said Mayweather “is running like a thief” from the negotiations. “When push comes to shove, he (Mayweather) backs down.”
What would Mayweather be backing down from other than a deal that he’s not happy with at this time. Mayweather needs to kick the contract back to Arum and highlight the areas that he’s not comfortable with so that Arum and Pacquiao can start looking at giving in to his request.
As the A-side fighter in the negotiations, Mayweather has a lot of pull to ask for pretty much anything he wants, and it’ll be up to Arum and Pacquiao whether they want the fight badly enough.
Arum reportedly already has a backup option for Pacquiao to fight in his next bout in March or April. Arum isn’t saying who it is, but it’s rumored that one of his Top Rank stable fighters WBA light welterweight champion Jessie Vargas is currently on standby waiting to see if the fight gets the call to come in and replace Mayweather.
Vargas, for people who don’t know him, is the guy that was given a gift decision over Anton Novikov last year in August in a fight that many boxing fans saw Novikov winning. Obviously, Arum’s backup options are pretty horrible, and we’re likely looking at Arum having to scurry Pacquiao off to Macau, China again for another fight. Pacquiao-Vargas is a non-seller in the U.S.
Arum says he’s going to stick it out with the Mayweather-Pacquiao negotiations until the fight gets done. Let’s hope so, because the last time they had serious negotiations in 2009, Arum pulled Pacquiao out of the negotiations in order to match him up against one of Arum’s Top Rank stable fighters at the time Joshua Clottey. What a huge mistake on Arum and Pacquiao’s part in not sticking it out and working out the Mayweather negotiations.
Pacquiao would have gotten a 50-50 purse split with Mayweather, and likely would have ended up with over $70 million for the fight instead of the $20 million for the Clottey fight. It was just a colossal mistake on Arum and Pacquiao’s part in abandoning the negotiations.
The Mayweather-Pacquiao fight is close to getting done, but Arum needs to keep his goal and not blow his stack and ruin the chances of the fight getting made. We need cool heads here for the fight to go ahead.
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