Did the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight go up in smoke with the mid-July deadline from Arum?

By Boxing News - 07/07/2010 - Comments

By Chris Williams: Earlier this week, Manny Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum gave Floyd Mayweather Jr. a mid-July deadline for him to agree to the November 13th fight with Pacquiao and to sign the contract. Since that brilliant move, there hasn’t been a peep said from Mayweather, and you have to wonder whether that announcement from Arum hurt things more than helped. Just reading it makes you shake your head think that Arum must have been in a foul mood when he said it.

Instead of keeping cool and not trying to upset boxing’s golden goose, Arum went and gave Mayweather, arguably the biggest star in boxing, an ultimatum. What was that? It just seems like Arum got things twisted around here.

When you’re trying to land a fight against a fighter that is out-selling your fighter on pay-per-view, which is where it counts, the last thing you want to do is give them an ultimatum. I could understand it if Pacquiao was getting the better PPV numbers, then Arum could call the shots and Mayweather would have to come quick if he wanted to get a fight with Pacquiao. But it’s not like that.

Mayweather just finished out-selling Pacquiao by a significant margin with his fight against Shane Mosley. I would be surprised now if Mayweather ever chooses to fight Pacquiao after getting a deadline from Arum. I think Arum went about this all the wrong way.

He needed to be showing his good side and trying anything to please Mayweather. It would have helped. Ideally, I think Arum needed to sit back and maybe let someone who didn’t have a history with Mayweather do the negotiations.

When you know there’s been a long history between you and another person, it’s best sometimes to let someone else step in and do the talking for you. That way you don’t cause friction and worsen things. And you don’t have them give deadlines if you want to fight them.



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