By Juan dela Cruz: “Even inside the jail, I am ready to fight Floyd!”, this was the 8-division world champion Manny Pacquiao’s statement during a television game show on which he was one of the hosts in a local channel in the Philippines a couple of days ago.
Manny made the statement only as a joke but boxing fans and analysts take it as Manny’s expression of his readiness to face Money May Floyd. As we all know, Floyd was sentenced three months jail time due to a domestic violence case against him by his former live-in partner and mother of their three children Josie Harris.
Due to the sentence, the Manny-Floyd fight was again stalled but Bob Arum said the fight can still be negotiated and be held on November this year as Floyd is expected to be released by April. Even before Manny made that joke, there was already a boxing match held inside a jail. This happened on an American light heavyweight James Scott who had fought eleven professional fights inside Rahway State Prison in New Jersey from 1978 to 1981. Scott even became a world title contender while incarcerated where he won 9 of his 11 bouts inside. Four of his fights were aired by NBC Sports, CBS Sports and HBO. He ended his career in a loss to Dwight Braxton in September of 1981.
On the other hand, Mayweather will not be stripped of his WBC welterweight crown despite the ruling that when a champion is sentenced to jail, he will be stripped of his title. According to WBC executive secretary Mauricio Sulaiman, said boxing sanctioning body is behind Mayweather. “The WBC has always been in the corner of the boxer. The organization was created to protect the fighter. We will try to achieve the most fair outcome for the fighter and the fans.” It was not mentioned by Sulaiman if they will do the same had it not been Floyd. But be that as it may, Manny’s fans take it positively. They are of the opinion that it will be for the good of the proposed Pac-Money fight as hindrances are being put away to make the fight happen. And anyway, Floyd can still fight even without said title, as what he had said before, “belts only gather dust”.
But a sad note for the Floyd fans who had been saying that Manny is broke, just recently, Pacquiao bought a multi-million dollar luxury yacht and it was already delivered to him by an unknown dealer. Last year, Manny bought a 300M-peso mansion in Manila, that’s aside from a Ferrari he bought in the US also last year. This just show that Pacquiao is far from being broke. While he had been spending lavishly left and right, Floyd is busy giving guilty plea to his cases, a clear picture of contrast between the two fighters.
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