By Chris Williams: Trainer Freddie Roach feels confident that the Floyd Mayweather Jr vs. Manny Pacquiao fight will be taking place next May. Why does Roach feel this way? Roach thinks that Mayweather’s recent talk of the Pacquiao fight in the media is a clear sign that he’s interested in the fight.
“When you see Mayweather talking on TV, that means something to me because he never goes on TV to talk about a fight. That’s the first time I’ve ever seen him do that,” Roach said via Steve Kim at UCN.
Mayweather has wanted the Pacquiao fight for the past six years. Roach should know that already if he’s a good judge of what Mayweather is thinking. Mayweather attempted to negotiate a fight with Pacquiao back in 2009, but he came up empty after asking the Filipino star to agree to random blood tests to check for performance enhancing drugs.
The fight should have been negotiated back then, but it didn’t get made. Mayweather has wanted to make a fight with Pacquiao and his team for many years, but he’s had no luck in getting him in the ring until now.
Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum has shut down his talk with the media. “I know nothing,” Arum said via Philly.com when asked how the negotiations are going between the Mayweather and Pacquiao camps on Tuesday. Arum obviously doesn’t want to jeopardize the discussions by giving commentary and potentially make the negotiations even more difficult by saying something that could reveal Pacquiao’s hand.
The two sides are said to be stuck over several issues which are considered to be small items. However, the fact that the two sides have been stuck on these same issues for some time now suggests that they’re not as small as some would believe. It would be a pity if the Mayweather-Pacquiao negotiations fall apart over something small when the two sides are so close to making a deal.
The major financial points were agreed to long ago with Pacquiao getting the small end of a 60-40 purse split of the loot for the fight. While that may seem like not a great deal, it actually is a great deal when you consider that the fight could bring in over $300 million.
If the Mayweather-Pacquiao negotiations aren’t completed, then Arum says that he has a backup plan for the 36-year-old Pacquiao. Arum isn’t saying who that fighter is, but it’s likely his fighter Jessie Vargas, an unbeaten guy that Arum has been sticking on Pacquiao’s undercards for his last couple of fights.
“There’s always been a backup plan, but let’s be positive that the fight can come through and we don’t have to worry about backup plans,” Arum said via Fighthype.com.
Never the less, you have to think about backup plans in case we get one of the sides unwilling to compromise. We saw that during the first negotiations in 2009 after they got stuck on the random blood testing issue.
They had agreed on everything else in the negotiations, including the purse split. It came down to the blood testing that killed fight. It should have been a small thing, but it ultimately caused the fight not to take place. It just shows you that even small things can be big enough for a fight not to get made.
Pacquiao vs. Vargas would be a disappointing fight for a lot of boxing fans, because Vargas isn’t well known and he’s not looked good in his last couple of fights against Antonio DeMarco and Anton Novikov. Vargas arguably lost the fight to Novikov in 2014, but was given a controversial decision victory over the Russian fighter.
Comments are closed.