Arum optimistic Mayweather vs. Pacquiao negotiations gets done this week

By Boxing News - 02/15/2015 - Comments

arum45By Dan Ambrose: Top Rank promoter Bob Arum feels optimistic that the Floyd Mayweather Jr vs. Manny Pacquiao negotiations will get completed this week so that they can start moving forward for the mega-fight. The bout is still planned for May 2nd at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.

This means that Mayweather and Pacquiao’s management will be in the hurry up mode in trying to market the fight in the time remaining before the fight. There’s only two and a half months remaining before the fight, and they’re going to need to use the last half of February for some kind of press tour to alert the casual boxing fans about the fight.

“I’m very optimistic,” Arum said via writer Steve Carp from the Las Vegas Review Journal. “We’re waiting to hear from Floyd. But from everyone’s perspective, it needs to get resolved this week. You have to start planning things, and there’s a lot that has to be done.”

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Carp went onto say that his inside source said to him that the negotiations are almost done, and that it’s down to just a small number of items that they need to negotiate. What those items are is unknown. The source chose not to speak of them.

“When Floyd Mayweather announces what he’s going to do that’s when it will be officially known. Both sides have said that. #boxing,” Carp said on his Twitter page. “Contrary to reports that Mayweather-Pacquiao is a done deal, both sides directly involved say it’s not. That includes Bob Arum. No deal done on Mayweather-Pacquiao fight. But they’re getting closer to agreement.”

There’s certainly a lot of talk about the Mayweather vs. Pacquiao fight being done this week. It’s down to less than two weeks to go before the end of the month, which is when the fighters need to start their training camps to get ready for May 2nd.

If Mayweather wants to have a press tour of at least 11 days, the fight is going to need to be announced by Tuesday. Of course, Mayweather and Pacquiao will need to start the press tour immediately upon the fight being announced unless they want to do less than 11 cities for their press tour.

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It’s almost unthinkable that Mayweather will want to have the press tour be a short one, because there are a lot of casual boxing fans who won’t know about the fight unless there’s a long press tour. The more cities they hit on the tour the better it will be.

Mayweather will be the one who will be announcing the fight, says Carp. It’s going to be interesting to see if he uses his Shots Instagram account to announce it, or if he’ll look to announce it in an interview. Whatever way Mayweather decides on announcing it, he’s going to need to announce it soon if he wants to make the fight as big as it can be.

If they let the negotiations drag out to March, then it’s really going to cut into the promotional aspect of the fight. Mayweather would have to start his training camp at that point even though then negotiations are still going on. Pacquiao has reportedly already started his own training camp early in working on his conditioning for the fight.



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