By Chris Williams: Top Rank promoter Bob Arum still isn’t quite sure whether the Floyd Mayweather Jr vs. Manny Pacquiao fight will get made or not. Arum was recently optimistic about the fight negotiations getting completed in the next couple of days, but he’s now not willing to commit to the fight taking place or not.
It’s unclear what may have killed the 83-year-old promoter’s optimism but it could be that the two fighters have reached another stall point in the negotiations.
“As far as negotiations are going on… we will see in the next few days whether it is possible to make a deal,” Arum said DZMM’s Teka Muna via abs-cbnnews.com.
If the Mayweather-Pacquiao negotiations fail to produce a fight, Arum will likely pull out Jessie Vargas, the WBA light welterweight title holder, and have him and Pacquiao face each other at the end of May on the 30th. It’s probably a fight that would need to be placed in Macau, China due to the lack of interest in the match-up.
It’s not a fight that would likely sell out any arena in the United States, and it might be a little embarrassing if they stage it at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada and see a half-filled arena.
Amir Khan’s name has been mentioned as a possible backup for the 36-year-old Pacquiao, but that’s probably not going to take place while Khan remains under contract with Al Haymon. It’s unclear when his contract expires with Haymon, but my guess Pacquiao will be retired by the time Khan is a free agent.
As far as the Mayweather-Pacquiao negotiations go, there is still a couple of sticking points that are keeping the negotiations from being completed, according to Pacquiao’s adviser Al Haymon.
We’ve heard that HBO and Showtime are supposedly done with their negotiations, but that doesn’t seem to be the case because the two are said to be still in talks.
If Mayweather doesn’t fight Pacquiao, then he’ll very likely look to face WBC middleweight champion Miguel Cotto for his WBC 160 pound title. Mayweather won’t fight Khan, who Mayweather sees as not a big enough name to bring in the PPV buys.
Cotto is a proven entity and that can pull in good pay-per-view buys as the B-side of the equation. Cotto has never shown that he can bring in big numbers as the A-side, however.
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