By Chris Williams: With few boxing fans talking about the November 22nd title defense by WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao (56-5-2, 38 KOs) against Chris Algieri (20-0, 8 KOs), Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum continued stoking the fires for a Pacquiao vs. Floyd Mayweather Jr mega fight.
Arum said in an interview recently that Mayweather is afraid of losing to the 35-year-old Pacquiao, and that he’s choosing not to fight him because he wants to avoid a defeat.
It obviously doesn’t hurt the Pacquiao-Algieri fight for Arum to be talking up a Mayweather-Pacquiao fight right about now because it definitely helps get the easily persuadable fans to believe that there’s a chance that Mayweather will fight Pacquiao in early 2015. We obviously can’t foresee what’s going to happen in the future, but right now I wouldn’t bet on that fight taking place in 2015.
“Well you know he doesn’t like to fight southpaws and Manny style could give him all kind of problems,” Arum said to the Boxingsocialist.com. “Well you know he doesn’t like to fight southpaws and Manny style could give him all kind of problems. He’s [Mayweather] not afraid of getting hurt, he’s afraid to lose.”
Mayweather isn’t afraid of fighting Pacquiao. He’ll take the fight if he decides it’s the best fight out there for him. Right now there are other mountains for Mayweather still to climb and he doesn’t need to fight Pacquiao, especially when he still has Juan Manuel Marquez problems.
Pacquiao could really help his cause in getting a Mayweather fight if he were pick up a big victory over someone really good like Gennady Golovkin that gets boxing fans excited about him like they were back in 2010 in the height of his game.
There’s really no one good enough at 147 or 154 that Pacquiao can fight that will be able to bring him back to where he was before. That’s why he needs to go above and beyond by taking on a well-respected fighter like Golovkin if he badly wants a Mayweather fight.
“Well, it’s a fight that will pay him the most money he’s ever made in his career and the only reason he’s not taking it is because he feels he’s going to lose,” Arum said.
I’m not too certain that a Mayweather-Pacquiao fight would pay Mayweather more than what he got for his fight against the highly popular Saul “Canelo” Alvarez in 2013. Mayweather can probably make bigger money by going backwards for a rematch against Canelo than fighting Pacquiao.
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