By Jason Kim: Manny Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum revealed earlier on Monday that his management team had reached a deal with Floyd Mayweather’s team for a fight, and the only thing they were waiting for was Mayweather to make a decision whether he approves of the deal. It’s unclear what the terms are for the fight, but it’s thought that Mayweather and Pacquiao agreed to a 50-50 split of the revenue. As far as the drug testing go, there’s going to be random blood testing at least up until 14 days before the fight.
It could go further, depending on how the negotiations went. It’s unlikely that we’ll see random blood testing all the way up to the fight, though. Arum said that he wants Mayweather a decision by mid-July, telling Sportsillustrated.com “By mid July, he’s [Mayweather] either in or out. We’re not going to wait forever. We’re going to fight on November 13.” I know if Arum realizes this or not, but he came off kind of heavy-handed with that statement. It’s like he’s giving Mayweather, who many people consider to be the best fighter on the planet, an ultimatum. He’s basically telling him to take it or leave it. That’s not the kind of thing you want to say to someone that you’re trying to line up a fight, not when they’ve already been difficult to negotiate with.
If Mayweather was just another typical opponent of Pacquiao, someone who didn’t have the clout to be dealt with on even terms, then I can see Arum coming across kind of aggressive. But this is Mayweather. He’s already proven to be a bigger pay-per-view attraction than Pacquiao, so why would Arum give him a deadline like that? Why would say it to the media? That seems kind of ham-handed for Arum to say something like that.
If I was going to be dealing with someone that I wanted to set up a fight with, the worst thing I could imagine saying was – ‘here’s the deal- you have until mid July to agree to it. If not, I’m out of here. Can’t forever.’ That would be a blow it move on my part, and I just wonder whether Arum has been dealing with too many lesser fighter than Mayweather and is used to getting his own way when dealing with Pacquiao’s opponents.
Like I said, Mayweather isn’t one of Pacquiao’s weaker opponents. He’s the one who is coming into this fight as the better PPV attraction in the U.S., and that’s where it counts. Arum needs to be more soft spoken, I think, when talking about the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight. If he’s going to set a deadline, then he needs to be quiet about it and not talk about it with the media. If I’m Mayweather, I would not be happy hearing about Arum talking about a deadline. I would probably ignore him and either move in the opposite direction or ask for a bigger purse split. I’m not Mayweather, but I can’t imagine him hearing about a deadline from Arum and being okay with it.
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