Mayweather vs. Pacquiao may never happen

By Boxing News - 01/25/2012 - Comments

Image: Mayweather vs. Pacquiao may never happenBy John F. McKenna (McJack): The long sought, much anticipated fight between undefeated superstar World Boxing Council (WBC) welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr (42-0, 26 KO’s) and Filipino icon WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquaio (54-3-2, 38 KO’s) may never happen.

Boxing fans have been bombarded by numerous boxing articles on a daily basis about the possibility of a Mega fight between Mayweather and Pacquiao happening for a number of years now. Yet, time after time the hopes of boxing fans worldwide have been dashed for a variety of reasons. The reality is that both the Mayweather and Pacquiao camps are to blame for the failure of the huge fight to come to fruition.

A couple of months ago Pacquiao made the mistake of saying that he would be willing to accept less than a 50/50 cut of the revenue for the super fight. Boxing fans thought it was a noble gesture for the eight division champion to concede such an important point before negotiations had even begun. The story was picked up by boxing sites all over the world. Of course Mayweather capitalized on Manny’s mistake. A few days ago when Floyd made his widely publicized phone call to Pacquiao allegedly in the hopes of making a breakthrough by going right to the source, he told Manny that there was no way that he would accept a 50/50 deal.

Pacquiao backed away from his previous statement that he was willing to take a smaller piece of the pie for the fight to happen. Of course Top Rank CEO Bob Arum would never agree to terms where Pacquiao would take less than a 50/50 cut. Manny was in the position where he painted himself into a corner because of his desire to see the fight with Mayweather happen. Mayweather had in effect outwitted the Pacquiao camp once again.

The Pacquiao camp is now in the position that if negotiations do happen, Mayweather will have appeared to have made a serious concession if he agrees to allow Manny to have a 50/50 cut of the revenue, which is what it should have been all along.

In addition Mayweather can use Manny’s refusal to accept a 50/50 deal as yet another excuse not to fight him. One can hardly blame Floyd for not exploiting the issue. After all he was just using Pacquiao’s own words to beat him over the head with.

The random drug testing issue is another case where the Pacquiao camp came out with conflicting and contradictory statements. Differing statements were coming out stating that Manny had accepted all the drug testing procedures that Mayweather was demanding. The statement would then be refuted by another “insider” on the Pacquiao team.

There is no doubt in my mind that Manny wants the Mayweather fight. After a sub par performance by Manny against Marquez it appears that Floyd has moved closer to wanting the fight. However, Mayweather may think that Manny’s performance in the Marquez fight was just an off night by the “Pacman” and that he should still be leery of the Filipino dynamo. Mayweather above all else does not want to lose his “0” and may worship that more than he does “Money”.

It is also my firm belief that if Bob Arum and Floyd Mayweather Jr. really wanted the Mega fight to happen it would already have happened. Both Arum and Mayweather are masters of making things look like the other guys fault when in reality they are both to blame for the Mayweather – Pacquiao fight not happening. The sands of time are running out. If the fight does not happen in the fall of 2012 in all probability it will never happen.



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