By Allan Fox: Former heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis is hoping to see a mega-fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr and Manny Pacquiao. That’s the fight that Lewis wants to see most of all of all the potentially huge fights out there in boxing.
Lewis points out that his fight with Mike Tyson in 2002 was still a highly successful match, even though the fight took place 13 years too late. Tyson was in his prime from 1986 to 1989.
In 1990, Tyson began his long slide downhill that eventually led to him retiring in 2005. It’s too bad Lewis didn’t catch Tyson in his best years. Fans would have been able to see how good or not so good Lewis was.
“There’s a few fights I want to see in 2015 but May-Pac is still at top of my list. Stop the madness and make it happen! #EnuffAlready,” Lewis said on his twitter. “If we could make Lewis-Tyson happen with HBO & Showtime, they can get it together for May-Pac and make history again. People say Lewis-Tyson was years too late. I agree but it didn’t stop it from being highest grossing fight in history at the time.”
It would be great for the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight to take place in 2015, but that’s going to depend on a lot of things taking place. Mayweather will need to give Pacquiao a decent purse split because he’s probably not going to accept anything less than a 60-40 split. Pacquiao says that “Mayweather can get the amount he wants,” as quoted by RingTV.com.
“Money is not the issue in our fight.” That sounds like Pacquiao being selfless. However, Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum will be looking to get the most money possible for his fighter, and it’s doubtful that he’s going to let Mayweather get a purse split of 65-35 or better.
Mayweather will have to give in or else there won’t be a fight, because Arum can always match Pacquiao up with one of the guys in his promotional company. If Arum can keep getting huge site fees in Macau, China, then you can expect him to select someone like Jessie Vargas for Pacquiao to fight over there.
The fight won’t likely bring in big pay-per-view numbers in the United States, but the combination of the site fee and U.S pay-per-view will make it worthwhile. Vargas will get more popular, and Pacquiao will collect another nice payday even if the fight only brings in 300,000 PPV buys in the U.S.
The Pacquiao-Mayweather fight is a doable one right now because Mayweather seems to want the fight, but the financial aspect will be the hardest part in trying to make the fight. If Mayweather wants too much money then the fight won’t get made because Arum likely won’t bend to what Mayweather wants. If he wants 70-30, he’s probably not going to get it.
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