By Chris Williams: The negotiations between Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr made no progress on Tuesday, according to Dan Rafael of ESPN. It’s unknown what is precisely is holding up the fight negotiations other than the HBO and Showtime stalemate, and a number of other smaller items.
There’s still plenty of time for the negotiations to get done before the May 2nd fight date, but obviously it’ll make the marketing of the fight a little more challenging if the negotiations drag out much longer.
“Told by one source involved in the #MayweatherPacquiao talks there was zero progress today. ‘None whatsoever,’ said the source. # boxing,” Dan Rafael said on his Twitter.
Pacquiao’s adviser Michael Koncz has been saying that the fight will sell itself basically, and that a worldwide tour and a large tour of the United States isn’t necessary.
If Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum is on board with Koncz’s idea of visiting only one to two cities in the U.S to market the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight, then it really doesn’t matter if the fight negotiations get dragged out to March. As long as the two fighters begin training for the fight by late February, they should be ready to go on May 2nd.
If Marketing of the fight isn’t important then the negotiations can definitely drag out another month or even two. It would be up to Pacquiao and Arum as to whether they would be willing to stick it out in the negotiations that long.
Granted, that’s a long time to be in negotiations, but with the money that Pacquiao can make for the fight, he should be willing to negotiate the fight into April if he has to. It’s not as if he has a good backup option in terms of an opponent for him to fight if the Mayweather fight doesn’t happen.
The negotiation sticking points are things that will obviously take time to be worked through, but this is a fight that can definitely take place as long as one of the two parties doesn’t start with the deadlines or walk away from the negotiations. Pacquiao and Arum walked away from the original negotiations in 2009 after they got a 50-50 purse split agreement with Mayweather.
The fight negotiations fell apart over the blood testing that Mayweather wanted in order to detect performance enhancing drugs. Pacquiao is no longer receiving a 50-50 purse split, and the drug testing will be in place for this fight if it comes off.
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