By Chris Williams: When you have a talented fighter like Floyd Mayweather Jr., you have to treat him with the utmost respect if you want to have an audience with him and especially if you want to fight him. This is why it’s all the more confusing that Top Rank promoter Bob Arum gave Mayweather Jr. a two-week ultimatum recently to make up his mind and decide to take the fight with Manny Pacquiao by mid July, otherwise Arum will look to match Pacquiao up with one of his other fighters Miguel Cotto and Antonio Margarito.
Why should Mayweather say in response to Arum? I think it would have been better had Arum kept his 2 week deadline out of the media, because that is something that probably isn’t conducive in putting a fight together with Floyd. However, Arum has already said it and now it’s Mayweather’s turn to react or not to react to the deadline from Arum. Should Floyd just give in and come groveling with a ‘yes’ answer or should he say nothing and move in another direction to fight someone else.
Clearly, Mayweather can make the same kind of money he would get in the Pacquiao fight by taking on two lesser fighters. Sure, it will take Mayweather longer to make the same kind of money, but then again he wouldn’t be dealing with any promoter giving him a deadline. He would be the one calling the shots. Mayweather would get the lionshare of the purse split against other opponents, while Pacquiao could continue to fight against Arum’s fighters in his stable and wait for a fight against Mayweather next year.
If Pacquiao is able to beat Cotto or Margarito, then we could be looking at Mayweather and Pacquiao negotiating next year. Hopefully, Arum wouldn’t come out again with another deadline that he announces to the media and turn Mayweather off towards the fight. If so, then I think we could probably forget about Mayweather and Pacquiao ever fighting and Arum would have to be satisfied with Pacquiao ending his career against his two fighters Cotto and Margarito.
Those fights would make much less money, but Arum wouldn’t have to worry about giving deadlines and blowing the deal. He would be the one putting it together from start to finish. Mayweather will be huge no matter who he fights from now. He doesn’t need Pacquiao to be great, because he generates huge excitement every time out no matter who he fights. Some fights, for whatever reason, aren’t meant to happen. They can happen, but it takes good negotiating, cool heads and keeping things quiet instead of blurting.
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