By Ryan Dunn: Now that Manny Pacquiao has won the congressional seat he spent over $6.5M to secure, and now that Floyd Mayweather Jr. has $40M to fill up his pool and go swimming in, cooler heads should return to the negotiating table to make the fight of the millennium happen.
But there are a few teensy issues to resolve first, right?
First, the purse split. Floyd has made a strong case for himself as commanding the biggest audience in boxing, having broken the all-time PPV record with Oscar De La Hoya, and recently locking in on the second highest non-heavyweight PPV event in history with Shane Mosley. Manny has also proven he can command the stage against virtual nobodies in PPV terms with over 700k buys vs. Joshua Clottey. He also has been in two of only six non-heavyweight fights ever to sell more than one-million PPV buys (versus both Cotto and De La Hoya).
Both of these guys are humongous draws in the sport, with no peer on the nearby horizon. It is going to be sad to see them leave the sport, and it will be even more tragic if they do not face one another in the fight to end all fights. The purse split in the last set of negotiations was laid out as a 50/50 split, right down the middle. Will Team Pacquiao have the same leverage this time around, having underperformed Floyd in PPV buys in their two respective most recent fights?
Cooler heads will hold the answer.
Which brings up the second sticking point (pun intended). And that is the Floyd Mayweather drug testing demand. I have praised Floyd in the past for intentionally (or inadvertently) doing the sport a favor by raising Anti-Doping awareness for those who were okay with the status quo. Pacquiao has stated he will abide by any/all commission rules wherever he fights. Mayweather has said, essentially, “No blood, no fight.”
So the line has been drawn in the sand, with fans on both sides throwing stones at the other, accusing Manny of looking suspicious for dodging the tests, and Floyd looking like a jerk for trying to play the commissioner. Will they find some accord and make the unthinkable, thinkable?
Cooler heads hold the key.
Of course there are the other issues: venue, ring size, glove size, weight penalty clauses, and so forth. But the two I just mentioned will be the big ones. Bob Arum has vowed that this time around, Top Rank and Golden Boy will keep their dealings quiet, and try to marginalize the blabbing as much as possible. Cooler heads, and all of that, you know.
Here’s my prediction: Manny and team give in to Floyd’s demands after much toiling, posturing and hassling, on the condition that the Nevada Athletic Commission (NAC) impose Floyd’s request as an observed rule of the USADA testing protocol for the fight. This way nobody has gone against their word; Floyd gets the level playing field he so adamantly seeks, and Manny gets to follow commission rules. As for the defamation suit, I predict it will be dropped once the fight is made.
I have spent some time reading the agendas from NAC meetings going back to last December, and it’s interesting to see what they have on their agenda. Everything from young boxers requesting funds to travel to Nevada for a fight to boxers over 35 like Hopkins requesting his license to box again in the state. I am expecting to see a request from Golden Boy and Top Rank to request a review for Olympic-Style drug testing any day now.
There are more than one-hundred million reasons, and a few cooler heads, that tell me it just might be so.
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