By Chris Williams: Showtime executive vice president of Sports Stephen Espinoza is still optimistic that the negotiations can be successfully completed for Floyd Mayweather Jr and Manny Pacquiao in their mega-fight on May 3rd. There are just a small number of issues that need to be worked through.
Showtime and HBO still have to work out their deal as well, but there’s a good possibility that they’ll be able to negotiate a deal from their end. Espinoza is saying that Mayweather absolutely will be fighting on the May 2nd date, even if he doesn’t face Pacquiao.
Espinoza says that Amir Khan or Miguel Cotto will be Mayweather’s opponent for that date in case the negotiations with Pacquiao fail to work out.
“He’s definitely fighting on May 2,” Espinoza said via the Daily News as quoted by the nydailynews.com [http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/more-sports/showtime-exec-backup-bout-place-floyd-mayweather-article-1.2106406] earlier on Friday. “His first choice by far is Manny Pacquiao. If it becomes clear that that fight is not achievable, then he would move on to either Amir Khan or Miguel Cotto. He’s made it clear to us that Pacquiao is still his No. 1 priority, and that’s where all our energy is focused.”
The fact that Cotto still hasn’t named his next opponent strongly suggests that he’s keeping himself on hold in case the Mayweather vs. Pacquiao fight negotiations fall apart. In that case, Cotto would have an excellent chance of getting the fight with Mayweather due to the Puerto Rican fighter having a larger fan base in the United States compared to Khan.
Cotto has a proven track record in bringing in a high number of pay-per-view buys when he fought Pacquiao and Mayweather in the past. The only negative thing that Cotto has going against him is that he was beaten by Mayweather in 2012, and there are a lot of hardcore boxing cans who don’t want to see Mayweather face him again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mBfaVbg6bI
Cotto’s trainer Freddie Roach has talked long and hard about how he’s improved him as a fighter. However. Cotto has fought only Delvin Rodriguez and Sergio Martinez under Roach’s watch, and neither of them were good enough for anyohe to learn whether he’s gotten better or his management team having gotten better in selecting beatable opposition for him.
“There is urgency to get this done and get it going, but we’re not in a panic mode in terms of the calendar right now,” Espinoza said.“I would say I’m optimistic that it can get done. We have work to do to bridge the gap on important issues, but the most important thing is that Floyd genuinely wants it and wants it badly.”
“We’re down to the last handful of issues. So the handful of issues is small, but the importance of those issues is pretty big,” he said without going into detail. “There are a few open issues on each element of the deal, on both the fighter/promoter part of the deal and the network to network part of the deal. Neither one is done yet.”
Espinoza thinks that they could make huge progress in the negotiations at any time. There are just a handful of issues that HBO and Showtime, as well as the two fighters are dealing with. Espinoza doesn’t think that HBO is dragging their feet in the negotiations in hopes of signing Mayweather in 2016 when his contract with Showtime is up. Espinoza doesn’t see that happening.
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