By Dave Lahr: As much as I’d like to see the mega fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao get made quickly without a lot of hassle and squabbling, I think Mayweather would be really selling himself short if he was to agree to the original 50-50 purse split offer for the Pacquiao fight. I also think Mayweather would be crazy if he were to give in and agree to accept a 14 day no drug testing cut off for Pacquiao.
I realize that Pacquiao has softened his original stance of not wanting any blood testing within 24 days of the fight, but I thought that not a good thing for Mayweather to agree with either. Thankfully, Mayweather didn’t and the fight negotiations fell apart when Pacquiao didn’t want to agree to the 14 day cut off that Mayweather was asking for. Now things are slightly different. Mayweather has become more confident after beating Shane Mosley easily on May 1st, and brought in double the pay-per-view numbers that Pacquiao did for his recent bout with Joshua Clottey.
Should Mayweather ignore his win over the better fighter Mosley and his better PPV numbers or should he use these things to get a better deal? Unless Mayweather is a soft touch and an all around nice guy who doesn’t care about money, I think he would be making a mistake in using the same negotiation terms as last time with Pacquiao. I know it would be easy for Pacquiao and his promoter Bob Arum if Mayweather would give on these issues and just follow along as if the Mosley fight never took place.
But the fact of the matter is that the fight did take place, and Mayweather did get the better PPV numbers. So, Mayweather should be able to expect a better deal because of it. It wasn’t his idea for Pacquiao to go and fight Top Rank fighter Clottey. It was a nice thing for Pacquiao to do to give Clottey a good payday, help give him some visibility among boxing fans, but I think it was a monstrous mistake in that fight happening.
Clottey certainly didn’t benefit beyond the payday. That was a horrible fight from him and he didn’t give a favorable impression. And the lack of PPV numbers for the Pacquiao-Clottey fight put Pacquiao at a disadvantage against Mayweather at the worst possible time in his career. If Pacquiao was going to continue to fight beyond the Mayweather fight and make huge paydays against other fighters, I wouldn’t think it was such a big deal.
But the Clottey fight wasn’t the bout that Pacquiao needed to keep him on an even bargaining level with Mayweather. For that to happen, Pacquiao would have had to have been matched against someone like Paul Williams or Sergio Martinez, two fighters that I couldn’t see ever getting the chance to fight Pacquiao. But I guess we should be happy. It might have been worse had Pacquiao been matched against Miguel Cotto again in a needless rematch. Right now, Cotto is the backup plan for Pacquiao if the Mayweather fight doesn’t happen. I’m sure that fight will really help Pacquiao’s legacy a ton.
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