By Chris Williams: During tonight’s NBA All-Star game, Floyd Mayweather Jr took the time to clear up the false information that has been floating around about Manny Pacquiao having signed the contract for their fight on May 2nd. Mayweather said that neither he nor Pacquiao have signed any contracts for their fight as of yet. However, Mayweather says he hopes to get the fight negotiations finished in the near future, but as of now no contracts have been signed.

This news obviously is blowing the false rumors out of the water about Pacquiao having signed and Mayweather on the verge of signing his own side of the contract.

It just means that the inside sources that have been saying that Pacquiao signed the contract need to make sure they’re getting the correct information when they talk about this.

“That’s not true. I haven’t signed yet. He (Pacquiao) hasn’t signed yet,” Mayweather said via Fighthype.com during tonight’s NBA All-Star game at Madison Square Garden in New York. “It’s just been speculations. But hopefully we can make the fight happen,” Mayweather said.

Showtime vice president of Sports Stephen Espinoza also chimed in on Sunday with his thoughts about the Mayweather-Pacquiao negotiation talk, saying on his twitter “Per ESPN, announcement could come tonight. Don’t hold your breath. BECAUSE THE DEAL ISNT DONE.”

If Pacquiao is the one saying that he’s signing contracts for the fight, then you’ve got to wonder was exactly Pacquiao is signing. Is he mistakenly signing the deal memos and thinking he’s signing an actual contract? If so, then why isn’t someone from his management telling him that he’s not looking at the actual contract but rather a deal memo?

The fight negotiations need more time, and the people reporting the rumors as facts are turning this whole thing into a joke. It’s like the short story by Aesop called the boy that cried wolf.” In that story, a sheep guarding boy cried wolf to get a rise out of the villagers who would come to rescue him. There wasn’t any wolf, however. But eventually when a wolf actually did appear, the villagers failed to respond when the boy cried wolf in a situation where he really needed someone to help him. What this means is that if people keep giving false reports about the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight having been made, this could lead to fans losing interest and not believing the reports until they actually see the guys in the ring ready to fight.

The original report that Pacquiao had signed the contract for the Mayweather fight came from a UK site that reported it. Unfortunately, the news turned out to be false.

It would be nice if the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight can get made, but it’s going to take more time. There obviously further issues that need to be worked through before the fight can be announced. Depending on whether the information about HBO and Showtime being legit, the two cable networks still have some things that they still have yet to finish negotiating.

The HBO-Showtime joint broadcast negotiations are just as important as the Mayweather vs. Pacquiao. You can’t have a fight between these two superstars if HBO and Showtime still haven’t finished negotiating their part of the contract.