Guardian.co.uk
When the anger that had been burning in Manny Pacquiao's perfectly flat and apparently legal belly for three months finally erupted in litigation, Floyd Mayweather Jr was rudely made aware that he has started a fight his lawyers will have to finish.
The little Filipino says he does not want to share a ring with a man he says thinks he is a drugs cheat – so he is suing him. There can't be a problem with that. It is up to Mayweather to back down – or defend himself, a skill he has perfected in the ring to the point of artistry.
It is hardly the sporting contest millions of boxing fans have been waiting for but, in the absence of sanity, it might have to do for the moment. And Pacquiao's lawyer, Daniel Petrocelli, says others might be named alongside Mayweather and members of his family and promotional team. This could get ugly. And drawn out.
How did a promotion that seemed to be going so smoothly come to this? If things looks too good to be true in boxing, they usually are. This is a story that suggests something else was always going on in the background.
First, the fighters' respective promoters, after quickly working out a mutually acceptable deal in nearly every respect, indulged themselves in a dangerous and tedious game of brinkmanship for nearly two weeks – at the end of which they have been reminded in the quick issue of a writ in the Nevada Federal Court yesterday that Pacquiao is not just a great fighter but a proud man.
They didn't know that already? He has legal history with Golden Boy Promotions going back to 2006, when he switched to Bob Arum's Top Rank. He was the feistiest deal-maker before agreeing to fight Ricky Hatton in May. Hatton's American promotional partners? Golden Boy. Pacquiao is nobody's doormat.
That he is prepared to defend his reputation so fiercely is not only predictable but the single nugget of integrity in a dispute that again makes professional boxing an international joke.
We have to wait now until supposedly wise men are jerked into compromise by the only language they speak: money. Otherwise, no fight – and that is inconceivable.
Still, there are too many odd twists in this tale. It is a case littered with idiocy and inconsistent moralising.
Since the row began, the Mayweathers have had the unquestioning support of Golden Boy's chief negotiator, Richard Schaefer, in their demand that Pacquiao submit to Olympic-standard random blood tests. Yet Schaefer steadfastly objected to blood tests for the shamed Shane Mosley only two years ago. Overnight, almost, Schaefer has become an avenging angel for the anti-drugs lobby.
Bob Arum, meanwhile, has been even more pro-active in the dispute on behalf of Pacquiao and has generated valuable ink for a fight that has captured an audience beyond boxing's hardcore, albeit for spurious reasons. He has talked tough, then backed down. Schaefer, to a lesser extent, has postured to no convincing effect. But the headlines have grown.
This is, after all, a bout – for Pacquiao's WBO welterweight title but really for the mythical pound-for-pound championship of boxing – that three million TV viewers in America will pay for, and probably half that again in the UK, plus whatever other markets the promoters can ginger up around the world.
Then into this mix is dropped the contentious suggestion that Pacquiao won't take random blood tests because he fears exposure as a drugs cheat. He denies the claim vehemently – and sues.
The numbers on offer for all concerned in the mega-fight of all time are considerable – yet we have been asked to believe that the fighters and their connections are willing to junk the promotion because of an unproven and, until three months ago, unvoiced suspicion about the most marketable boxer in the business.
So, how did they get themselves into such a fix? Here's a scenario that would not have displeased anyone on either side:
Mayweather did not get much of a workout in his comeback with Juan Manuel Marquéz in September, his first fight since stopping Hatton 21 months earlier. So, the theory goes, he was never going to fight Pacquiao on 13 March without a tune-up. He realises he risks his unbeaten record, perhaps even a knockout defeat, if he is not in peak form, so he looks for a way out, a postponement.
Pacquiao's trainer, Freddie Roach, was never that keen to take on Mayweather in March either, preferring to wait until the summer. He even mentions that Yuri Foreman, the new world light-middlweight champion who can't punch (and is promoted by Arum) might be an easy interim opponent, giving Pacquiao a chance to win his eighth world title at different weights – and upping his cachet in renewed negotiations with Mayweather.
Then Mayweather, for whatever reason, gives everyone "wriggle room" by calling for tests he knows Pacquiao will not agree to. The negotiations, which have been going suspiciously well, unravel and disintegrate.
Fight off. For now.
Pacquiao fights the smaller, less threatening Paulie Malignaggi or Foreman on 13 March... and Mayweather fights Matthew Hatton in the UK. These are mere ticking-over fights that nonetheless will milk the beast of a few more bucks.
The main event is postponed until Saturday, 1 May, nine days before Pacquiao runs for Congress in the Philippines. The fight grosses even more than the $200m (£123m) originally predicted.
Pacquiao beats Mayweather (as Mayweather, deep down, had feared he might). Pacquiao is elected to Congress.
Arum and Schaefer sit down to discuss the rematch, at the MGM Grand or the 100,000-plus-seater Cowboys Stadium in Texas later in the summer. Estimated revenue? $250m.
Stranger things have happened. And Bob Arum, 78 and still kicking, has been involved in quite a few of them.
Source: guardian.co.uk
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