De La Hoya: Mayweather is scared to fight Pacquiao

By Boxing News - 01/23/2015 - Comments

delahoya454By Dan Ambrose: The Floyd Mayweather Jr vs. Manny Pacquiao fight is still up in the air at this point with Mayweather still waiting on the HBO-Showtime discussions before he puts his signature on the contract for the fight against Pacquiao on May 2nd.

Pacquiao says he’s agreed to everything that Mayweather has asked for in the contract, but he’s still waiting on Mayweather to agree to his side. Golden Boy Promotions president Oscar De La Hoya, who has no dog in this hunt, sees it as a case of Mayweather being scared of Pacquiao and that’s why he hasn’t hurriedly signed his part of the contract.

De La Hoya is convinced that it’s a too tough of a fight for Mayweather and that’s why he doesn’t want to take the fight. De La Hoya obviously is just speculating and has no way of knowing, but that’s his opinion about why Mayweather hasn’t agreed to the contract yet.

“The fight was never there. That fight was never made,” De La Hoya said via Fighthype about a Mayweather vs. Pacquiao match-up. “Manny Pacquiao, he already signed on his side. But to me, what I’m really thinking is that Mayweather is scared. He’s scared to lose his undefeated record. Manny Pacquiao would give him a very difficult fight. It would be very competitive for Mayweather. But unfortunately Mayweather doesn’t want to give the fight to the public,” De La Hoya said.

It’s difficult to picture Mayweather being afraid to face Pacquiao when he defeated someone bigger and stronger than Pacquiao in Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Miguel Cotto. Mayweather beat Cotto without a catch-weight, and his win over Canelo came at a catch-weight of 152.

The fact that Mayweather defeated both of these guys would tell you that he’s probably not afraid if fighting Pacquiao. If Mayweather hasn’t signed the contract for the Pacquiao fight then it could be due to him wanting to make sure that everything is kosher with the contract before he puts his contract on it.

Mayweather has always been a very patient guy when it came to negotiations, and he’s not the type to sign off on a contract unless it has everything to his liking.

Pacquiao would be a tough fight for Mayweather depending on how Mayweather chose to fight him. If he were to stand still with his back against the ropes like he did against Marcos Maidana in their first fight, it could be a fight that Mayweather might lose. But if Mayweather moves around the ring like he did against Maidana in their rematch, then it’s difficult to see Pacquiao being able to hang with him and get a victory.



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