Pacquiao: Mayweather fight announcement will come at end of month

By Boxing News - 01/11/2015 - Comments

pac8888By Chris Williams: WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao is saying that his fight between him and Floyd Mayweather Jr will be announced by the end of January, and that he expects the fight to take place. This is obviously good news for boxing fans who have been waiting patiently for the fight to take place for the past six years.

“We will make an announcement before the end of the month” and added “I think it (the fight” will happen,” Pacquiao said via Philboxing.com.

This news was expected from the 36-year-old Pacquiao, especially after the Los Angeles Times reported an inside boxing source saying that Mayweather is looking to get a 60-40 purse split for the fight and that Pacquiao is on board with that figure.

The fact that the negotiations are still going on at this point suggests that either Mayweather is looking for a bigger split than that, or possibly Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum is trying to bring Mayweather down closer to a 50-50 purse split.

The venue for the fight, the date and the blood testing are all said to have been agreed on. Mayweather wants the fight to take place on May 2nd on Cinco de Mayo at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada, and he’s reportedly not getting any friction in those areas.

The Los Angeles Times reported earlier last week that the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight negotiations could be wrapped up within seven to ten days. These latest comments from Pacquiao about the fight being announced by the end of the month would put it a little over the 7-10 day estimate.

Pacquiao will be making out big time if his promoter Arum is able to get a 55-45 or 60-40 purse split for the Mayweather fight. That’s a very, very generous offer for the 36-year-old Filipino star, given his poor pay-per-view numbers since 2013, and his losses to Tim Bradley and Juan Manuel Marquez.

I’m sure Arum and Mayweather’s management have worked out the numbers to what Pacquiao brings to the table in comparison to Mayweather in the pay-per-view market. But it’s hard for some boxing fans to see Pacquiao getting a purse split any better than 70-30, due to his declining numbers.

If Mayweather is willing to give Pacquiao a nice purse split of 60-40, then that’s a clear sign that Mayweather just wants to get the fight made so that he can make history. Giving Pacquiao a 60-40 deal or better will get the fight made now, and they can always fight each other two or three more times if the fight public is still interested in seeing them face each other.

It’ll require that their fight be a competitive one though, because if Mayweather turns Pacquiao into another Marcos Maidana like in their second fight, then the pay-per-view numbers for their additional fights will likely be disappointing.

The age has really crept in with Pacquiao lately. You can see it since 2012 when Pacquiao was fighting Marquez and Bradley. Pacquiao’s ability to move around the ring has been compromised by age. Pacquiao now just stands there and moves back and forth in a predictable manner.

He’s not jumping around side to side like he did earlier in his career, and he’s very easy to hit now, as we saw in his last few fights. Mayweather will have an easy time predicting when Pacquiao is going to come forward to throw punches, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Mayweather staggers or knocks him out if he catches him coming in the way that Marquez did.



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