By Chris Williams: In an interesting move, Manny Pacquiao says he asked for a huge $5 million fine to be included in the contract language for either fighter in case they fail their drug test for his fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr on May 2nd if the fight negotiations get completed. This has yet to be confirmed yet, but this is what Pacquiao said in an interview with sunstar.com.ph.
In the past, the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight failed to happen in 2009 after the negotiations fell apart over the random blood testing that Mayweather wanted both fighters to agree to in order for the fight to go ahead.
It was the perfect opportunity for Pacquiao to get a huge payday out of that fight because he had gotten Mayweather to agree to a 50-50 purse split.
This time around, Pacquiao will only be getting a 60-40 purse split. Just how much money Pacquiao will lose for not having been able to agree to the negotiations with Mayweather is unclear. It’s obviously a ton of money, and I’m sure Pacquiao and his promoter Bob Arum wish they could go back in a time machine right now and work out their differences with Mayweather over the drug testing for performance enhancing drugs instead of moving on and fighting Joshua Clottey.
“We’re almost there. I have agreed to all their demands,” Pacquiao said via Sunstar.com.ph. “In fact, it was me who requested that the contract include a $5-million fine for anyone who would fail the drug test. Let us give them the honor of announcing the fight,” Pacquiao said.
Mayweather having the honor of announcing the fight is clearly something he’s earned, so it’s not as if Pacquiao is throwing Mayweather a bone by agreeing to this. It’s something that Mayweather has earned by beating everyone he’s faced during his career and by bringing in the superior pay-per-view numbers.
The last time I checked, Pacquiao has five defeats on his resume including two draws. Those are seven fights that keep Pacquiao from showing the perfection that Mayweather has shown during his career, and we already know that Pacquiao’s pay-per-view numbers have been slipping recently in his fights against Chris Algieri, Tim Bradley and Brandon Rios.
There is no rematch clause in the contract for the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight, so this is it for both fighters. If Pacquiao loses the fight then he’s going to be out of luck, and he’ll have to just live with the loss in the same way he’s had to live with other defeats on his resume like his 6th round knockout defeat at the hands of Juan Manuel Marquez in 2012.
There is a lot of money to be made in a rematch between the two fighters, but it’s going to be up to Mayweather whether he wants to take his career backwards by facing Pacquiao against after they face each other on May 2nd. Mayweather has a lot of other options like fights against Danny Garcia, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, and Miguel Cotto.
Fighting the same guy in back to back fights might not be something that Mayweather wants to do unless their fight is somewhat close like his first fight against Marcos Maidana was. I have a feeling that Mayweather is going to make sure he boxes Pacquiao for 12 round solid rounds rather than giving him a handicap the way he did with Maidana in their first fight.
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