By Sean McDaniel: Top Rank promoter Bob Arum doesn’t believe that Floyd Mayweather Jr. is really going to take a couple of years off from boxing like Mayweather said in a YouTube video on June 2nd. In an article at ABC-CBN, Arum said “I’m saying that’s Floyd being Floyd. Until there’s an official press release saying that, I choose to believe differently. You know Mayweather says a lot of things that he really doesn’t believe. I really don’t know what’s on his head. We really don’t know. Let’s see if he decides to take a hiatus for a year or two years. I’m sure he’ll make that statement in a proper way, such as a press release.”
Arum wants to put together the Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao fight in the worst way now. Compared to how the last negotiations went, where Arum seemed to be a less urgent about the fight, he seems to really want the fight to be put together now. Of course, things have changed a lot since the last time Arum attempted to negotiate a fight between his fighter Pacquiao and Mayweather.
Pacquiao now has won a seat in the Philippine congress and plans on retiring after one or possibly two more fights. That alone is enough for Arum to want o put together the biggest money fight out there and that’s Mayweather. If Arum can’t make this fight happen, he’ll likely match Pacquiao against one of his other fighters, probably Miguel Cotto or Antonio Margarito.
Those fights will bring in much less money and fan interest compared to Mayweather vs. Pacquiao. It would be like apples and oranges and Arum knows this. Mayweather badly wanted to fight Pacquiao earlier in this year and was even willing to accept a 50-50 purse split, a $10 million weight penalty but the fight couldn’t be made because Mayweather wanted to have Pacquiao agree to random blood testing up to 14 days before the fight.
Now it would seem highly unlikely that Mayweather, energized by his dominating performance against Shane Mosley in May, would agree to any of those things. Mayweather did incredibly well in his pay per view bout against Mosley and made a huge bundle in that fight. Mayweather can make Pacquiao like money by fighting smaller fights and without the risk and the headache involved with trying to negotiate.
Also, with Mayweather taking the lion share of the purse split against the less popular fighters, he’s able to make a ton of money. However, if Mayweather does decide to take one or two years off from boxing, he could hurt his status among boxing fans. With Mayweather gone, some other fighter emerges and they would become the top fighter and Mayweather would be more or less forgotten. At 33, he could be showing signs of age if he comes back at 35. He might not be the same fighter he once was if he takes another two year break from boxing.
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