Pacquiao now pursuing Mayweather like Khan

By Boxing News - 08/16/2015 - Comments

pac723By Chris Williams: After taking Manny Pacquiao’s pelt last May and adding it to his huge list of fine pelts, boxing’s No.1 star Floyd Mayweather Jr. now finds himself being pursued by Pacquiao in a rematch that the Filipino star is hoping will take place next year in 2016.

Pacquiao is going after a fight against Mayweather much in the same way that Amir Khan is. The only difference is that Pacquiao isn’t talking trash like Khan and showing frustration. Instead, Pacquiao is calmly saying he wants the rematch with Mayweather when interviewed and saying he thinks he can do a better job the next time around.

The fact that Pacquiao is saying he’ll do a better job the second time is Pacquiao’s way of admitting that he didn’t do such a good job the first time around, even though he thinks he won the fight.

“I’d like to concentrate my efforts on working as a politician this year, and want to fight Mayweather in a rematch,” Pacquiao said to Fightnews.com. “I’ll be ready for that mentally and physically next year. I’ll show a better performance against him than in the first encounter.”

How many chances should Pacquiao get against Mayweather? If Pacquiao wasn’t ready to fight Mayweather and be at his best the last time they fought, then whose fault is that? Should Mayweather give Pacquiao a second chance because he wasn’t ready physically and mentally to fight him at his best last May? I don’t think so. When you blow on the job, then it’s over. There are no second chances.

Pacquiao can grovel and try and get Mayweather to give him a second chance, but I believe it’s going to have to be some serious groveling for the Filipino star to get a second chance. Pacquiao needs to start by talking up the money angle because that’s the only reason why Mayweather should even consider giving him a rematch.

Pacquiao has got to make Mayweather understand that he won’t ask for much in a rematch. Some boxing fans think Pacquiao deserves no better than an 85-15 split of the loot, but I disagree with that. I think Pacquiao deserve at least an 80-20 split of the loot, but no better than that. When you mess up as bad as Pacquiao did in the first fight with Mayweather, I believe you lose half of what you had before. That means instead of 60-40, you get an 80-20 deal and you have to like it.

Now why should Mayweather give Pacquiao a rematch when he already whipped him once before? We don’t see Pacquiao giving rematches with guys like Chris Algieri, Shane Mosley, and Brandon Rios. I’m sure all three of those fighters would gladly agree to a rematch if it were offered to them. After all, they were beaten as soundly by Pacquiao as he was by Mayweather. So why should Mayweather give Pacquiao a rematch?

Unless Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum is going to make it worthwhile for Mayweather to give Pacquiao a second shot at fighting him, I don’t see it as being worth it for Mayweather to even entertain giving Pacquiao a second fight. We heard the injury excuse that Pacuiao whipped out after his loss to Mayweather last May, but he’s not buying it and neither are a lot of the boxing fans that witnessed the fight.

If Pacquiao and Arum want a rematch with Mayweather then they’re going to need to show him how badly they want the rematch by floating a nice purse split that is agreeable to Mayweather. The last purse split was 60-40 in favor of Mayweather. Since Pacquiao lost the fight and then angered a lot of boxing fans by saying he had a shoulder injury, I think the purse split should be split in half once again, which means Pacquiao should agree to an 80-20 split of the loot.

It might seem a little tilted in Mayweather’s favor, but it will still be a lot more money for Pacquiao than he’d get in fighting the likes of Tim Bradley, Brandon Rios, Terence Crawford or Amir Khan. Pacquiao’s next opponent will clearly be picked from one of those four fighters, and I think he’d be lucky if he makes more than $20 million. But if he takes a nice 80-20 split against Mayweather in a rematch, Pacquiao could wind up with over $40 million in loot. That’s good money and his promoter Bob Arum could wet his beak as well on some good cash in that fight.

It’s worthwhile for Pacquiao to agree to the small money in a second fight against Mayweather because it will give Pacquiao a chance to redeem himself. If he can beat Mayweather in a rematch, then chances are high that there would be a third fight and that’s where Pacquiao would get a larger cut of the revenue approaching 50-50. I still don’t think Pacquiao would get a 50-50 purse split in a third fight even if he beat Mayweather in early 2016, but I think Mayweather would agree to a considerable bump up in pay to something along the lines of 55-45. But for right now, Pacquiao is in a bad position to ask for anything due to his loss last May and his subsequent injury excuse that he pulled out of his back pocket after the fight.

That’s why I think the only ay Pacquiao gets a second fight against Mayweather is if he agrees to an 80-20 split. Besides that, I think Pacquiao and Arum are going to need to ask Mayweather in a real nice way for the fight. They can’t talk aggressively or try and lure him into the fight by continuing to talk nonsense about how they should have been given the decision last May.

That won’t work I’m afraid. It would be a likely turnoff for Mayweather because he’s not going to want to fight someone that he totally dominates and then have to hear the guy whine and say he should have been given the decision. It would be like a playground game where a much more talented kid beats an over-matched kid on the playground and then kid gets up and says he wasn’t beaten and that he’ll face him again.

After a while, it becomes apparent that the less talented kid will never admit that he’s been beaten and it becomes forlorn and not even worth it for the more talented child to keep whipping him. That’s why Pacquiao and Arum need to come at Mayweather the nice way by doing a little groveling, admitting that they lost last time, and showing a wiliness to accept the small money by saying they’ll accept an 80-20 split.

I don’t know that Arum will be willing to have Pacquiao take a smaller cut of the financial pie though. In an interview after the fight last May, Arum said that just because Pacquiao lost the fight last time to Mayweather it didn’t mean that he would have to accept less than he did last time or even the same amount. In other words, Arum was hinting that Pacquiao should get a pay raise in a second fight with Mayweather. That’s completely absurd because it would mean that Pacquiao should be rewarded for failure. That’s not how things are done in this society. You get rewarded for success on the job. More often than not, if you fail on the job, your boss than lets you go and replaces you with someone who won’t fail. You certainly don’t get a pay raise after you screw up.



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