Pacquiao: “Whatever he [Mayweather] wanted to do, we were accepting it”

By Dave Lahr: WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao (51-3-2, 38 KO’s) is saying that he agreed to everything that Floyd Mayweather wanted during the last round of negotiations, according to Dan Rafael. Pacquiao said “Whatever he [Mayweather] wanted to do, we were accepting it. Whatever he wanted. I want to fight. I’ll agree to anything. I thought the fight was a shoo-in.” The problem here is that this is coming from Pacquiao and not Mayweather and his team. We don’t even know what Pacquiao agreed to. He could have been agreeing to the old terms during the first negotiations and not the second ones.

If Mayweather’s team are to be believed about there being no negotiations between the two fighters, then what Pacquiao was agreeing to then were the old negotiations that didn’t work during January. At that time, Mayweather agreed to a 50-50 split with Pacquiao for the revenue. They never could agree on the blood testing, although Mayweather wanted the blood testing to be conducted up to 14 days before the fight. If Pacquiao is agreeing to that, then he’s agreeing to the old negotiation terms. Things changed though. Pacquiao fought Joshua Clottey and only brought in 700,000 PPV buys, whereas Mayweather fought Shane Mosley and came in with double that number at 1.4 million pay per view buys.

Agreeing to the old terms would certainly be favorable to Pacquiao after Mayweather came in with the better numbers. But since we’re only hearing from Pacquiao’s side and not Mayweather’s, I can’t buy what Pacquiao is saying about this. We need Mayweather to speak, and we still don’t even know what Pacquiao agreed to. He says “I’ll agree to anything.” What is he talking about? What did he agree to? Since he’s not saying and neither is Bob Arum of Top Rank, I have to assume he’s talking about the old terms for the first failed negotiations.

If that’s the case, then Pacquiao better not hold his breath waiting for Mayweather to accept a fight with him because Pacquiao will have to give a lot better terms to Mayweather now. And if Pacquiao’s fight with Margarito does as poorly as his fight against Clottey, then he’s really going to have to give Mayweather what he wants in the negotiations in terms of blood testing and revenue split. Pacquiao should just give in to Mayweather and stop wasting his time fighting guys like Margarito and Miguel Cotto.