By Eoin Cooke: We’ve been down this road before and will surely go down it a few times again before Floyd Mayweather next fights. An advisor of Mayweather’s indirectly refers to the fight and all hell breaks loose on the internet. People are naive if they think that we’re any closer to actually seeing the fight that boxing needs than we were before Leonard Ellerbe’s press release.

Even if the claims coming from the Pacquiao camp that testing is no longer an issue are true, Mayweather more than likely has something else up his sleeve to stop him from facing the man from the Philippines. Perhaps he’ll now decide that the fight has to take place at 154 lbs., or maybe he’ll insist on a higher split than had previously been agreed upon. He could even conjure up something equally as preposterous as his insistence on altering the accepted and normal drug testing procedure. He might make every demand possible that will inhibit Pacquiao and play into his own hands, but the evergreen Freddie Roach will be sure not to let his charge fight under unfair conditions.

What exactly could motivate Mayweather to get into the ring with the man who would pose the biggest threat to his undefeated record? Money? Glory? Personally, I can’t see either of those being a contributing factor. Mayweather has many clichés that he repeatedly throws into his interviews and of those is “I don’t need Manny Pacquiao”. Financially, that statement is true. Sure, the match-up would be the richest in boxing history but Floyd knows his limits in terms of risk to reward. He could keep on fighting the likes of Victor Ortiz for the rest of his career and still make fortunes. People will always pay to see him and if the rumours about the IRS are true, then surely he could solve the problems through his occasional PPV appearances against lesser fighters and his numerous business ventures and sponsorship deals. So you can rule money out as the driving force in the making of this fight. What about temptation for him to fight Pacquiao is for the chance to silence his critics and become the undisputed best fighter on the planet? Again, I don’t see this as being a contributing factor. No stranger to controversy, part of the Mayweather dichotomy is being hated. If he cared the slightest bit about his critics, he would have silenced them long ago. He has never been a “people’s champ” type of fighter and that’s not going to change anytime soon. As for the glory of being the best fighter in the world, that won’t come into play since in his mind he is already the best fighter of all time. Furthermore, if he wasn’t interested in a prime Margarito or an undefeated Cotto then why exactly would he be interested in a fighter like Pacquiao? I won’t go as far to call him a coward but anyone who denies that he has a history of ducking is deluded. Perhaps if Pacquiao struggles with a blown-up Marquez, Mayweather might decide that it’s finally time to make the fight. Realistically though, Pacquiao will more than likely handle Marquez in a more impressive fashion than Mayweather did in ’09 and the fight that everyone wants to see will remain a pipe dream.