By Jason Kim: In an article at Philboxing.com today, World Boxing Organization (WBO) welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao called out Floyd Mayweather Jr., saying “I hope Mayweather is serious enough in doing business with Don King and is not doing this only to save face. I hope Don King does the same in return, that he can make miracles happen. I say this to both these men: Let’s get it on….My promoter Bob Arum will be waiting for your call and will be very glad to hear what you have to say.”
It was interesting to see Pacquiao calling someone out for a change. He’s usually the one that is being called out, but you can see that he really wants the Mayweather fight bad. But you have to wonder whether Pacquiao wants the fight badly enough that he’ll agree to the full random blood tests that Mayweather wants. That’s the real test.
If Pacquiao starts talking 14 day cut-off for the testing, then you have to question how badly he wants this fight because Mayweather will likely want the full random blood testing before he’ll agree to fight Pacquiao. At this point, Pacquiao should just agree to the testing so that he can get this fight taken care of and focus on trying to figure out how he can beat Mayweather.
But besides the drug testing, there’s also the question of the purse split. Pacquiao wants a 50-50 deal, whereas Mayweather is said to want something in the range of 60-40. Calling out Mayweather is nice, but it’s meaningless if Pacquiao doesn’t agree to take the smaller cut of the money. Mayweather can always point to his better pay per view numbers in asking for a bigger cut, and it’s hard to disagree with him. Pacquiao and Arum could likely put the fight together without problems or any need of an outside promoter like Don King if Pacquiao would give Mayweather what he wants with the random blood testing and the split of the money.
It seems rather pointless for Pacquiao to be calling out Mayweather if he’s still not willing to give Mayweather what he wants. Hopefully, Pacquiao is calling Mayweather out after having decided to give in to Mayweather and appease him. Pacquiao and Arum may not like giving in to Mayweather, but it might be the only chance at getting the huge American star in the ring with Pacquiao. Mayweather has a lot of time still to go with his career, because he’s not holding down a political job. Pacquiao has to make a move quick if he wants to get the Mayweather fight so that he can retire and start serving his Filipino countryman.
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