By Michael Collins: Floyd Mayweather Jr’s patience with WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao and his loyal promoter Bob Arum has seemingly run out in judging by Mayweather’s taunting post on his twitter site today. Mayweather said this about Pacquiao: “Manny Pacquiao, I’m calling you out. Let’s fight on May 5th and give the world what they want to see. My jail sentence was pushed back because the date was locked in. Step up, Punk!”
Mayweather hasn’t had much luck in convincing the Filipino star in agreeing to the fight lately.
Just last week, Mayweather specifically had had his attorneys get 90-day jail term delayed from January 6th to June 1st, hoping to get a big multi-million dollar fight with Pacquiao on May 5th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
But instead of getting the fight, Mayweather was immediate rejected by Pacquiao’s promoter Arum, who ruled Mayweather out as a candidate for Pacquiao’s next fight. Arum said he was still going to go ahead and stick with his original plan of matching Pacquiao with one of four fighters – Timothy Bradley, Miguel Cotto, Lamont Peterson and Juan Manuel Marquez – that he has put together for Manny. Arum’s excuse was that it was too soon for Pacquiao to fight Mayweather because Pacquiao needed more time for his cut to heal.
The cut that Arum is referring to is the cut over Pacquiao’s right eye that he suffered in his last fight last November against Juan Manuel Marquez. Arum feels that the cut needs seven months to heal, not six like normal cuts. Yesterday, Arum said that the plastic surgeon that sewed up Pacquiao’s cut told him that Pacquiao won’t be ready to have contact sparring until April 1st (April Fools day), and Arum is saying that won’t give Pacquiao enough sparring time to get ready for the Mayweather fight.
Arum also wants a bigger arena before he’ll agree let his fighter take on Mayweather and he also wants more time to market the fight. He says he wants the bout to take place in November unless Mayweather can fight Pacquiao at the end of May.
Arum seems to be taking this as a situation where he’s calling the shots rather than it being a case where there are two huge stars and not just one. Arum is normally able to throw his weight around because Pacquiao’s opponents are never even close to being as popular as him. But in this case, Arum and Pacquiao are dealing with a fighter is on the same footing as him and it requires more of a bilateral negotiation rather than the one-sided approach Arum seems to be taking.
A lot of boxing fans think Arum has no intention of ever matching his cash cow fighter Pacquiao up with Mayweather for fear that Pacquiao will get badly beaten and this will lower his future earnings. It’s possible but there’s just too much pressure on Arum and Pacquiao for them not to take the fight. Pacquiao’s popularity will take a negative hit if Arum opts to continue to shield Pacquiao from Mayweather. We’ve seen a little of that from Arum in his reluctance to match one of his other stars WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. with Sergio Martinez and now we’re seeing it with Arum not putting Pacquiao in with Mayweather.