By Chris Williams: 36-year-old Filipino star Manny Pacquiao is confident that his mega-fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr will happen, and he sees it being ready to be announced by next week.
If what Pacquiao says is true, then the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight will take place on May 2nd at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada, as already planned. It won’t need extra time for it to be marketed by having it take place on May 30th or in June. Mayweather’s fight against Robert Guerrero was delayed in 2013, and that fight didn’t get announced until February 19th before taking place on Cinco de Mayo in May of that year.
“I’m thinking that the fight will happen,” said Pacquiao via Foxnews.com. “So hopefully within one week, though, we can hear from them and fix the fight. I don’t want that when I retire from boxing, and there’s a big question to the minds of the fans.”
This is good news for boxing fans if Pacquiao turns out to be correct about the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight being ready to be announced by next week.
As far as Pacquiao and the subject of question marks go, I still think there’s going to be question marks about Pacquiao’s career even if he does face Mayweather.
All catch-weight fights Pacquiao had obviously won’t help his legacy, and how he fought Oscar De La Hoya at 147 instead of 154. De La Hoya was not as his best after having to starve down to make the weight at welterweight.
It’s unknown if Pacquiao is privy to what’s going on with the HBO-Showtime negotiations. He’s got to know something if he thinks that his fight against Mayweather will be ready to be announced by next week.
If Pacquiao doesn’t know whether HBO and Showtime will be done with their negotiations a week from now, then he could be just like his promoter Bob Arum with him in underestimating the time required to get the negotiations completed. Arum recently said that HBO and Showtime had completed their negotiations when they reportedly were said to still have issues that they hadn’t agreed on.
HBO and Showtime are trying to iron out a deal where they’ll jointly broadcast the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight.
It’s still unclear whether these two competing networks can come to an agreement. If not, then this is probably the end of any chance of boxing fans getting to see the Mayweather vs. Pacquiao fight unless Mayweather chooses to sign with HBO next year after his contract with Showtime expires.
Mayweather said on his Instagram on Sunday “From the looks of this video, I’m telling Manny Pacquiao that we have to give the world this fight.” This was from their meeting last month, and it was said to have been a productive meeting. “You know, I congratulate him on his career. He’s had a wonderful career, and I’ve had a wonderful career,” but, before we leave this sport, of course, we have to make this fight happen.”
Pacquiao needs the Mayweather fight to validate his boxing career because there’s been a lot of fluff that he’s faced, and like I’ve said, Pacquiao has fought in a lot of catch-weight fights instead of at the full weight.
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