Manny Pacquiao’s adviser Michael Koncz says he’s still in negotiations with Floyd Mayweather Jr’s management for a fight between the two fighters. Mayweather has made an offer, and Konz, with the help of Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum, has made a counter offer to Mayweather. Unfortunately for the fans, we don’t know what Mayweather’s starting offer was and what the counter offer is from Arum and Konz.
It’s hard to imagine that Mayweather’s offer was a substantial one though because he doesn’t see Pacquiao as being in his class, and he’s well aware that Pacquiao’s pay-per-view numbers have been dropping in the last two years. Pacquiao losses to Tim Bradley and Juan Manuel Marquez don’t help matters either.
“We’re still in negotiations with Floyd’s group through Top Rank. I spoke to Manny this morning. I gave Manny what is perceived to be a counter offer from the Mayweather people,” said Koncz to RingTV.com. “We discussed it and now I’ve given instruction to Bob to counter their counter. We’ve been going back and forth. Bob has been negotiating with the powers that be on Floyd’s side for the past couple of weeks.
There’s been offers and counter offers, and a couple of days ago Bob called me and gave me allegedly where Floyd’s side is, and I discussed that with Manny two hours ago.”
The logical question is what’s going to happen with Pacquiao if Arum negotiates too hard and asks for too much money. Mayweather will go his separate way and leave Pacquiao stuck without a viable opponent. Arum can always match Pacquiao up against one of his Top Rank fighters like Jessie Vargas or Terence Crawford, but how do you ask boxing fans to pay $70 to see Pacquiao fight one of those guys?
Obviously those fights won’t be on regular HBO, but I believe that fans will shy away from paying to see Pacquiao fight either of them. I’m talking about the casual fans who aren’t familiar with those two. This is why Arum should do the utmost to try and make the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight happen because the alternatives are so bad.
