By Chris Williams: Bob Arum, the promoter for WBO 147 pound champ Manny Pacquiao, is saying that the networks HBO and Showtime have already agreed to distribute the Pacquiao vs. Floyd Mayweather Jr fight if two sides can negotiate a fight.
Arum sees it basically up to Mayweather whether he wants to fight his guy Pacquiao or not because he says the networks are ready to show the fight.
There hasn’t been any public word yet from the network executives to verify what Arum is saying about the networks being willing to distribute the fight. It’s nice that Arum is saying both the networks have agreed to show the fight between Mayweather and Pacquiao, but until we hear something from both of them to back this up then you can’t really say much. It’s just words from Arum at this point without HBO and Showtime speaking up.
“The networks have agreed to distribute the fight,” Arum said via mb.com.ph.
Even if both networks agree to televise the fight on pay-per-view, Arum might need to agree to let Mayweather Promotions run the show rather than Top Rank. If Mayweather wants his company to run the promotion then that is obviously going to need to be agreed upon by Arum before they can even sit down and start discussing things like the purse split, fight date, venue, ring size, gloves, and who comes out first.
If that’s the starting point for the negotiations, Arum agreeing to let Mayweather Promotions to promote the card, then the fight won’t happen unless there’s some agreement with that possible request. Right now, Mayweather hasn’t even mentioned Pacquiao’s name for a fight, but believe me if he does, he’s going to want some give on their part in the form of concessions. They’re the ones that one the fight right now. Mayweather has made it clear that he has other mounts to climb rather than fight a guy with a 2-2 record in his last four fights.
“He’s just making some noise. No one calls the shots.”
I think Mayweather would probably disagree with Arum on him saying no one calls the shots. At this point Mayweather would have to be seen as the A-side in the equation for a Mayweather-Pacquiao mega fight, whether Arum wants to acknowledge that or not. If Arum still believes that Pacqiuiao is on equal footing with Mayweather in terms of negotiating power, then we’re probably not going to see a fight between them made.
Mayweather is 47-0 and he is still bringing in huge pay-per-view numbers. His fight against Marcos Maidana last Saturday night brought in a gate of $15 million, making it the 5th biggest gate in Las Vegas history. That tells you that Mayweather is still bringing in that sweet cash when he fights. When one fighter brings in more green than the other, you’ve got to say they’re the A-side, and when you’re the A-side, you can get your way on most things when it comes to negotiating.
I can see we’re probably going to have some problems with the Mayweather-Pacquiao negotiations right off the bat, and I’m not sure that it’s going to be a doable thing even if the networks did agree to both show the fight, which we still don’t know for a fact at this point.
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