By Chris Williams: Top Rank promoter Bob Arum wants Floyd Mayweather Jr. to skip his September fight and instead wait around until April of 2016 in order to be available to fight Manny Pacquiao in a rematch at that time at the MGM Grand’s new 20,000 seat arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, according to Dan Rafael of ESPN.

Why Arum wants Mayweather to skip his September fight is the big question because it shouldn’t matter to Arum that Mayweather fights in the month or not.

Mayweather would still have seven months to get ready for an April 2016 fight against Pacquiao if the Filipino star is able to fully come back from his surgically repaired right shoulder by that time.

“I think the wisest course of action is for Floyd to wait,” Arum said to ESPN.com.
If Arum is coming from the angle to where Mayweather would be saving his final fight of his Showtime/CBS contract for the April date, then it makes sense by Arum asking Mayweather to wait. But even if Mayweather’s contract where to expire in September with him taking another fight, Mayweather can always sign a short term contract with Showtime or HBO for a couple of fights, and make big bank.

I’m betting that Showtime will be interested in signing Mayweather to another contract if they know that at least one of those fights will be against Pacquiao.
I wouldn’t wait around for a Pacquiao fight in April if I were Mayweather. It doesn’t make sense for Mayweather to miss out on a big payday in September just so that he can take the fight against Pacquiao in April.

If Mayweather misses the payday in September, then the fight against Pacquiao won’t even be worth it. The fight would be like any other normal fight for Mayweather because he’d be missing out on the $50 million he can get in September fighting anyone. I think it is way too risky for Mayweather to skip a fight and look to fight Pacquiao in April. What happens if Pacquiao’s surgically repaired right shoulder needs an additional surgery to fix something that the original doctor failed to repair? What if Pacquiao re-injures his shoulder training for the Mayweather fight? If that happens, we could be looking at Pacquiao missing another 9 to 12 months after getting a second surgery on his shoulder.

Once a fighter starts going under the knife, there’s always a possibility that they’ll reinjure the area that was operated on and may need further surgeries. Ideally, Pacquiao needs a good year off from the sport, and then take things slow with a couple of tune-ups before facing Mayweather again.

Arum doesn’t seem interested in doing that. He wants the rematch between Mayweather and Pacquiao straightaway in April. That’s not good. Pacquiao might fall apart during the fight with Mayweather, and who knows if he can make it through another training camp without getting hurt again.

If Arum is smart he won’t have Pacquiao doing any sparring at all for the Mayweather fight. Instead he should just Pacquiao doing work on the speed and heavy bags in addition to all the jogging he usually does. Even with the jogging, Arum should have Pacquiao back off completely on that so that he’ll have more punching power for the fight. Last Saturday, Pacquiao had the look of someone that had spent too much time running in training camp.