By Jim Dower: In an article at Examiner.com, Floyd Mayweather Jr. dropped a huge hint that he’ll be facing Manny Pacquiao at the end of the year after all. Rapper 50 Cent was being interviewed, and he said his album will be put out at the end of the year “around the same time frame of the biggest fight in boxing history.” Mayweather quickly cut in, saying “the biggest in the history of the sport.” If that’s not a huge hint that Mayweather will be fighting Pacquiao then I don’t know what is. Mayweather had recently hinted about taking a break for a year or two from boxing. However, this latest interview suggests that Mayweather really wants to fight Pacquiao.

It’s difficult to get any information the progress of the negotiations because Top Rank promoter Bob Arum has a gag rule on the two teams speaking about the negotiation status to the media. Last time they tried to put together a fight, the talks fell apart because of the blood testing. It wasn’t because of the media and the interviews the teams were giving. It just seemed that Pacquiao and his team wanted to fight quickly and left the negotiations to fight Joshua Clottey. In hindsight, that fight shouldn’t have happened and they should have stuck it out and finished negotiations with Mayweather.