Koncz: If Mayweather wants to cement his legacy he has to give the fans the Pacquiao fight

By Boxing News - 01/04/2015 - Comments

floyd20By Chris Williams: Manny Pacquiao’s adviser Michael Koncz thinks that Floyd Mayweather Jr has to face Pacquiao to give the fight the boxing fans want to see. Koncz, like Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach, thinks that Mayweather’s legacy will be less than complete if he fails to face the 36-year-old Pacquiao.

Koncz doesn’t mention why Mayweather might not want to face Pacquiao like if he were to ask for too big of a purse split.

Mayweather wants to fight Pacquiao, but he’s probably not going to give him a generous purse split that he doesn’t rate, given his declining pay-per-view numbers and his recent losses to Juan Manuel Marquez and Tim Bradley.

“It’s really up to Floyd. If he wants to cement his legacy and pull his head up when he retires he’s got to give the fans what they want,” Koncz said via Philstar.com.

I don’t think Mayweather is going to worry too much about Koncz talking about his legacy being tarnished. This is obviously just another trick to try and shame Mayweather into taking the fight against the Filipino star. If Pacquiao, Koncz and promoter Bob Arum wants the fight with Mayweather then they’ll agree to a fair offer that he offers them.

What’s considered fair is open to interpretation, of course, but I think you can consider anything in the 65-35 to 70-30 to be fair offers from Mayweather for the fight. 60-40 might be a little too tilted for Pacquiao, and I doubt Mayweather is going to agree to that kind of a deal.

With Mayweather fighting then better opposition during the last two years compared to Pacquiao, I doubt that his legacy will suffer much if he doesn’t face Pacquiao. Mayweather has fought high quality opposition all throughout his career, and he’s recently beaten Miguel Cotto, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, Robert Guerrero and Marcos Maidana. Those guys are clearly better than Pacquiao’s recently opponents Chris Algieri, Brandon Rios and Tim Bradley.

Koncz says they have other options for opponents if they can’t get the Mayweather fight. He’s not saying who those guys are, but you can guess easily that Jessie Vargas, one of Arum’s Top Rank stable fighters, is near the top of the list.
“If the opponent knows we’re looking at them they’re going to jack up the prices,” Koncz said.

I doubt Koncz and Pacquiao have to worry too much about someone like Vargas or Mike Alvarado pricing themselves out for the fight. Neither of those guys would excited the boxing public much as opponents for Pacquiao, so it wouldn’t matter all that much even if they did price themselves out.



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