By Eric Thomas: Top Rank promoter Bob Arum, speaking to the Los Angeles Times, said that his fighter Manny Pacquiao has made significant concessions to make the fight happen with Floyd Mayweather Jr. for November.
Arum didn’t say what those concessions are, but the LA Times article mentioned the 14 day blood testing cutoff, which Pacquiao agreed to before the negotiations with Mayweather started recently. It would be sad if this was the extent of the concessions because it would seem that 14 days might not be good enough to appease Mayweather this time, even though that’s what he asked for during the failed negotiations with Pacquiao and Arum in January of this year.
At the time, Pacquiao wouldn’t budge from his stance of wanting the random blood testing to stop 24 days before the fight. With the negotiations at a stalemate, Pacquiao then fought Joshua Clottey on March 13th, beating him by a lopsided 12 round decision. Mayweather, in turn, defeated Shane Mosley by an even more lopsided 12 round decision on May 1st. Later, when Pacquiao agreed to the 14 days cutoff, Arum seemed happy, thinking that this would solve a big part of putting together a Mayweather-Pacquiao fight this time.
After all, that was the one sticking point that held back the negotiations from going forward. Mayweather and Pacquiao had already agreed on a 50-50 cut. However, information leaked out where Mayweather was no longer asking for a 50-50 deal, and wanted a cut of 60-40 for a Pacquiao fight.
With everything different this time, Arum seemed to be going by the mindset of the last negotiations being good enough to make the fight happen between Mayweather and Pacquiao.
Things had changed since then, though. Pacquiao’s fight with Clottey didn’t do nearly as well as Mayweather’s fight against Mosley. This would explain why Pacquiao’s concessions might not be enough this time to make the fight.
Arum later learned that the blood testing that was done for the Mayweather-Mosley fight was stopped 18 days before their fight for some reason. Arum said “We don’t care who’s doing the test. They stopped taking blood 18 days before [Mayweather vs. Mosley], so that shows they can do it and be fine.”
Things aren’t that simple. Mayweather distrusts Pacquiao, and wants blood testing to be done all the way up until the fight with him. He won’t be satisfied with testing that stops 14+ days before the fight. Pacquiao feels weakened when having his blood tested and wants enough time for him to recover from the procedure.
Arum isn’t getting anywhere by mentioning what happened with the Mayweather-Mosley blood testing as a way of making it easier for Pacquiao. The fact of the matter is Mayweather doesn’t feel comfortable with fighting Pacquiao unless he’s tested thoroughly.
Hopefully, 14 days isn’t the concession that Arum is taking about, because that means the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight probably won’t happen because Mayweather will likely want Pacquiao to agree to test well within 14 days. And the 50-50 deal from before also won’t likely work this time around.
That will probably have to change as well, if not this time, then in the next negotiations. Mayweather will probably want a bigger cut of the percentage and will likely point to his better PPV numbers as a reason for it.
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