Is Arum hurting the Mayweather vs. Pacquiao negotiations with his comments?

By Boxing News - 02/06/2015 - Comments

arum3432By Chris Williams: Manny Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum recently commented to the Associated Press on Thursday saying that two of the last remaining four issues have been solved for the Floyd Mayweather Jr vs. Manny Pacquiao negotiations. Arum said that HBO and Showtime have both taken care of their negotiation issues. It has since been learned that’s not the case.

“Believe me, if this fight doesn’t get done, it will be because of Bob Arum,” said anonymous source told Yahoo Sports writer Kevin Iole about the Mayweather-Pacquiao negotiations. “Nobody can figure what he is doing or why he is doing it.”

Dan Rafael of ESPN said yesterday that he spoke with people from both networks who said it wasn’t true and that “they don’t have Mayweather-Pacquiao broadcast deal, regardless of Arum’s comments.”

This brings the question as to why would the 83-year-old Arum be saying that HBO and Showtime have made a deal when people are saying that they haven’t made a deal? Is it a situation where HBO and Showtime have made a deal and they’re just not going to admit it, and if so, why would they do this? It seems like the obvious move would be for both networks to say that they’ve made a deal as soon as possible in order to get the boxing fans off their back.

Believe me, neither of the two cable giants want to be seen as the scapegoat for the Mayweather vs. Pacquiao fight not taking place. This is why it seems unlikely that a deal has been made between the two networks. And this brings us back to the question of why would Arum be talking about the deal being done with HBO and Showtime if it hasn’t been? Where’s the gain for Arum?

Iole said in his Yahoo column “Top Rank President Todd duBoef is irate at Arum, his step father, but has essentially thrown his hands up in the air and said he can’t control Arum.”

Is Arum ruining the Mayweather-Pacquiao negotiations with his loose lips? Why is he speaking about things having been completed in the negotiations when they really haven’t?

Arum told this to the Associated Press on Thursday: “We had four issues and we resolved two. Now we’re working on resolving the other two. Unless something comes up at the last minutes, that’s what my take is.”

It would be great if this was something that could be verified to be true, because this would leave only two issues remaining that need to be resolved. However, with people now saying that HBO and Showtime haven’t taken care of the issues they have in their negotiations, it leaves the fight negotiations as being no closer to being completed than they were in previous days. We’re talking no progress here if HBO and Showtime haven’t yet settled their differences.

Mayweather said yesterday on his social medial Shots account “I set up this meeting with Manny Pacquiao to get this fight done, but they will continue to tell the public it’s us and that’s not true.”



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