LAS VEGAS -- A few minutes from the center of activity here, the other pound-for-pound claimant, the one who had that throne disputed via inactivity rather than defeat, squeezed in a boxing workout.
Manny Pacquiao and Miguel Cotto are the focus of the week, but Floyd Mayweather's fingerprints are smeared all over their welterweight title fight Saturday night at MGM Grand.
The Grand Rapids native refused to talk about any future fight plans, or whether he intends to watch Cotto-Pacquiao, or even why he is doing a full boxing workout without a bout scheduled. It might not seem that unusual. And for a fighter just one fight into a comeback, perhaps it isn't.
"I'm just keeping my body in shape, just like I always do," Mayweather said.
A not-so-hot rumor is starting to buzz within the closest inner sanctum of boxing circles here, one I'm going to float right now with full knowledge it could fly like a pin-pricked balloon: Mayweather does want the Cotto-Pacquiao winner, possibly next May, but doesn't want to do it in the second fight of his comeback, so he wants a January tune-up, opponent unknown, venue unknown, television entity unknown.
There isn't much of anything to substantiate that, although Mayweather adviser Leonard Ellerbe did mention he had heard the same rumor.
It also would explain the hush-hush gym work two months before the whispered fight may occur.
Some things we do know.
Pacquiao is solidly favored over Cotto. If the fight goes the way bettors believe, HBO will fire the burners quickly beneath the various promotional entities to push toward a Pacquiao-Mayweather fight for undisputed pound-for-pound supremacy.
Mark Taffet, the HBO pay-per-view boss, sidled up during lunch Wednesday and asked if I was here to start pumping up that fight for next May.
No, I mentioned, I'm actually here to cover Troy Rowland's fight with Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. -- but was Taffet trying to pump up the fight for next May?
"If Pacquiao wins, Pacquiao vs. Mayweather, or Mayweather vs. Pacquiao, would be the fight the public wants," Taffet said, carefully juxtaposing the names for political correctness. "And the fight the public wants is the fight that usually gets made."
The fight HBO wants usually gets made, too, by the way.
Bob Arum and his public relations director, Lee Samuels, waited until Thursday to toss their baited hook my way. Where has Mayweather been? Why so quiet?
Arum said he thought Pacquiao-Mayweather could surpass the record 2.44 million pay-per-view buys for the 2007 Mayweather-Oscar De La Hoya fight. As loathe as Arum is to deal with Mayweather, he is even more unlikely to leave that kind of bonanza untapped.
Arum has expressed several times in the past few months that he does not believe Saturday's fight is anything approaching a foregone conclusion and that the odds favoring Pacquiao by precisely 3-1 in man-to-man reckoning are out of whack against the live underdog Cotto.
In that respect, he's absolutely correct.
Arum also fully grasps the public fever for Pacquiao-Mayweather and how the premier boxing network craves it.
"HBO is absolutely besotted with that fight," he said, "which matters to me not one bit."
What does matter, Arum said, is what Saturday's winner wants. He promotes them both. By Sunday, he said he intends to ask the victor which fight to pursue next.
Arum said he even would talk directly with Mayweather business adviser Al Haymon, with whom he has feuded for years, if it would advance negotiations. But he would prefer the involvement of Richard Schaefer, CEO of Golden Boy Promotions, because their relationship is so solid that, "If it's possible to make a deal, we could have the parameters done in about two hours."
As for the man whose specter hovers over this fight, he stands mute.
"You're here to cover Pacquiao and Cotto," Mayweather said. "That's who you should be talking to. This isn't my time. This is their time."
That will change in about 24 hours.
E-mail David Mayo at dmayo@grpress.com and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/David_Mayo
Source: mlive.com
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