By Michael Collins: Team Pacquiao are saying that a May 5th fight with unbeaten WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. simply doesn’t make economic sense at this point in time with Mayweather wanting the fight to take place in the 16,800 seat MGM Grand arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum wants to have an outside arena built to hold 45,000 fans that will potentially bring in an extra $30 million for the fight. However, the construction for the outdoor arena won’t be completed until the very end of May. That’s not going to work for Mayweather, who has to begin serving his 90-day jail sentence on June 1st. He already got a delay of his jail term earlier this month so that he could fight on May 5th, hoping he could fight Pacquiao on that date. However, Pacquiao’s adviser Michael Koncz wants nothing to do with the May 5th date, saying to AP “Why would I tell Manny to fight on the 5th and throw away a percentage of $30 million? That’s crazy.”
Arum also is reluctant to take the fight for the same reasons and wants to maximize the money that can be made for the fight.
A couple of things that Arum and Koncz seem to be overlooking: A fight between Mayweather and Pacquiao will make Pacquiao a lot more money than any other opponent they dig up for him whether the fight takes place in a 16,800 seat arena or a 500 seat arena. They’re assuming that Mayweather will be available to them later. Instead of happily taking the fight and making more than they ever have for their fighter, they’re trying to grab every last penny that can and are making some assumptions about the future. It almost seems as if Koncz and Arum are calling the shots with Mayweather and I think that’s a bad idea.
I’m sure Pacquiao can make good money with facing whatever fighter that Arum picks out for him in June, but it won’t be nearly as much as he’d get right now. If it was an easy thing to put a fight together with Mayweather than I could understand Koncz and Arum griping about not making every red they can from this fight, but it’s been two years that Mayweather and Pacquiao have been talking about fight and nothing has happened. I think they need to take Mayweather up on his offer instead of guessing that they’ll still be there for them in the future and he open to them calling the shots about an outdoor stadium.
As bad as Pacquiao is looking now, they need to take the Mayweather now while they can before someone beats Pacquaio. A lot of boxing fans felt Pacquiao lost his last fight to Juan Manuel Marquez last November, and that’s not a good sign. Pacquiao looks slower and he’s not moving like he used to. He got the benefit of the doubt last time but this kind of thing can’t go on forever. Eventually he’s going to get beaten even if Arum is only matching him against fighters from his own Top Rank stable.
I can see Pacquiao losing to guys like Timothy Bradley and Miguel Cotto, and we already saw what Marquez did to him. Unless Arum is going to take a really safe route with Pacquiao by matching him up against Lamont Peterson, I think there’s a good possibility Pacquiao can get beat. And won’t that look bad for Arum and Koncz if that happened? They would have turned down huge money for the Maywether fight just because they couldn’t squeeze out a few more times and then Pacquiao gets beat. I don’t think boxing fans will give a rat’s backside once Pacquiao gets beaten by one of guys that Arum digs up for him.