By Chris Williams: New York Daily News reporter Mitch Abramson attempted to question WBA/WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr during Sunday’s NBA Dunk contest in Brooklyn, New York and he was quick cut off by Mayweather, who pointed out that he wasn’t going to be answering boxing related questions during an NBA game.
It shows you how serious Mayweather is about wanting the Pacquiao fight. If Mayweather were to talk about the fight with the media, he’d likely be jumped on from all sides for discussing the negotiations with the boxing public.
By keeping silent and stating his boundaries, Mayweather shows that he’s dead serious about wanting to get the 36-year-old Filipino star in the ring so that he can beat him and close the chapter on this fight just as he did in beating other big name stars like Ricky Hatton, Miguel Cotto and Juan Manuel Marquez.
After Mayweather beat those guys, there was no longer any talk from the boxing fans for him to fight them again. He’d done his job and it was pointless to go down that road again. If Mayweather beats Pacquiao on May 2nd, it’ll likely be the same.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cWOuU0idFY
“Is this a boxing match? I’m at an all-star event. Please respect my privacy. I don’t want to answer any questions,” Mayweather said to Abramson via the nydailynews.com.
I’m sure Mayweather gets approached constantly by reporters and general boxing fans wanting to get an update on the Pacquiao negotiations. It’s got to be tough on Mayweather because people don’t understand the boundaries that he sets up. For anyone, it would be tough being approached when you’re trying to live your live and constantly having to fend off questions 24/7.
Mayweather is right not to discuss the negotiations with Pacquiao, given that both fighters are not supposed to be negotiating the fight through the media. The fans/media are just going to have to wait for Mayweather to give an announcement on the fight for them to learn about it. That of course is if Mayweather winds up facing Pacquiao.
If Mayweather dominates Pacquiao, it’ll likely have a disastrous effect on Pacquiao’s career in terms of his pay-per-view numbers. Fans would no longer look forward to Pacquiao fighting Mayweather, because the fight will have already been one and Pacquiao will have failed just as Marquez, Hatton and Cotto all failed.
That doesn’t mean that Pacquiao wouldn’t still have his loyal band of followers that would tune in around the world to watch his fights, but I think there would be a lot fewer once he gets beaten by Mayweather. That would be a reason why Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum has seemed reluctant at times in setting up a fight between the two stars.
We saw how Arum talked about an outdoor stadium needing to be built before Mayweather could fight Pacquiuao during one failed negotiation. We heard the excuses about Pacquiao having a cut that might not be healed in time in 2012. And we saw how Arum and Pacquiao moved on from their 2009 negotiations and wound up facing Joshua Clottey instead of sticking it out and finishing the negotiations with Mayweather.
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