Roach doubts Mayweather can fulfill his contract with Showtime

By Boxing News - 02/09/2014 - Comments

roach1111By Chris Williams: Trainer Freddie Roach thinks Floyd Mayweather Jr. (45-0, 26 KO’s) might not be able to finish the remaining fights on his Showtime contract due to there not being enough top fighters for him to fight. Roach feels that Mayweather will be pretty much forced to fight Manny Pacquiao because he would be one of the last fighters that could make money with his contract with Showtime.

Mayweather is fighting on May 3rd and he’s expected to fight Amir Khan. If that fight fails to bring in big pay-per-view sales, then Roach might get his wish with Mayweather agreeing to fight his guy Pacquiao in order to pump up his PPV numbers.

“We like that fight [against Mayweather], and we’ve always liked that fight,” Roach said to behindthegloves.com. “Manny is with HBO and Bob [Arum], and I don’t see any changes there. So if Mnaweather says he’s not going to fight us because we’re with a different promoter, then that’s his loss, not ours. I don’t know to fulfill that contract [with Showtime] there’s not 5 guys out there for him to fight.”

After his May 3rd fight, Mayweather will have three fights left on his contract with Showtime, not five. But it’ll be interesting to see what Showtime does if Mayweather’s PPV numbers tank due to him fighting an unpopular fighter like Khan in the U.S on the Mexican holiday Cinco de Mayo. That might be a big mistake by Mayweather, and I hope that his team and Golden Boy Promotions has thought that one out.

It’s possible that Showtime could exert some pressure on Mayweather to fight a popular guy like Pacquiao if Mayweather’s PPV numbers for Khan come in really low like with his fight against Robert Guerrero. Would Showtime drop Mayweather with 3 fights left on his contract with them? I doubt it. If Showtime is blessing Khan as Mayweather’s opponent, then it’s their fault if the fight doesn’t bring in satisfactory PPV numbers. They should know ahead of time what the interest will be in a fight like this by looking at Khan’s record in the last two years, seen his 2 recent defeats, and read how fans are turned off by the fight to know whether the fight will interest fans.

Roach is going by the impression that Mayweather will change his mind about not wanting to fight Pacquiao without him leaving Bob Arum first. Roach feels that if Pacquiao keeps looking good in his fights, Mayweather will change his mind and agree to fight him. I’m not sure if that’s the case, but I can see him possibly agreeing to fight Pacquiao if his next two PPV fights do really poorly. Pacquiao would be the one way for him to pump his numbers back up to well over 1 million buys, and possibly 2 million. Mayweather could also fight rematches against Miguel Cotto and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, and those fights would definitely do well even with them being rematches. I’m not sure that Canelo would agree to fight Mayweather again so soon after having lost to him last September.



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