By Chris Williams: Oscar De La Hoya of Golden Boy Promotions says that Floyd Mayweather Jr. will not fight Manny Pacquiao if Bob Arum of Top Rank has any involvement with the fight. It’s not coming from De La Hoya, but rather from what what told to him by Mayweather.

Speaking with esnewsreport.com, De La Hoya said “This is coming from Mayweather. If Bob Arum is involved with Manny Pacquiao, then Mayweather doesn’t want to fight him. That’s the bottom line.”

Well that explains the reason failed negotiations earlier this year, if you want to call them negotiations. If Mayweather is waiting for Arum to pass away or Pacquiao’s contract to expire, that’s something one could understand. However, Pacquiao recently re-signed with Arum and it’s going to take him to 2014.

Given that Pacquiao is looking slow and no longer what he once was now, I can’t imagine Pacquiao having anything left by the end of his contract with Top Rank. If he keeps fighting and looks worse with each fight, Pacquiao will likely get beaten a number of times before his contract expires. And it might not be worth waiting on Pacquiao to be no longer with Arum and/or Top Rank, because Mayweather doesn’t have that much time left in his contract either.

Pacquiao looks like he’s almost on his last legs, and Mayweather should be looking to make that fight while he’s still relevant. Another couple of losses and there won’t be any point in Mayweather bothering to fight Pacquiao because no one will care. It’ll be like Mayweather fighting a shot Shane Mosley. That fight would have been great when Mosley was at the top of his game but by the time that Mayweather fought him it was no longer interesting.

Mayweather needs to fight Pacquiao now and put him out of his misery before someone else does.