By Lem Satterfield, FanHouse
Top Rank promoter, Bob Arum, is strongly considering Manny Pacquiao's next opponent to be New York's WBA junior middleweight (154 pounds) champion, Yuri Foreman, citing "too many hard feelings" as reasons for scuttling contentious negotiations for a March 13, bout with Floyd Mayweather that promised to be the most lucrative in boxing history.
Arum said he could announce Foreman (28-0, eight KOs) as the seven-division champion's next rival as early as Wednesday, with the clash between Pacquiao (50-3-2, 38 knockouts) and Mayweather (40-0, 25 KOs) in jeopardy due to an ongoing, drug-testing controversy.
"At this particular point, there is no movement at all with the Mayweather side," said Arum, "and the attitude in the Philippines is that they want to move on."
Richard Schaefer, CEO of Golden Boy Promotions, which is working on behalf of Mayweather, could not be reached for comment.
Arum also promotes Foreman, a rabbinical student born in Gomel, Belarus. Now a Bronx resident, Foreman is the first native Israeli to win a professional boxing crown.
"I think that Foreman represents a better story for Manny," said Arum. "And it's a test for Manny to see if he can go up to an eighth weight class."
Arum said that he arrived at his decision on Monday night -- Tuesday in the Philippines -- when he spoke to Pacquiao's adviser, Michael Koncz, who is with the fighter there.
"There's so much bad feeling now, that we're better off fighting somebody else and maybe revisiting this fight with Mayweather in the fall," said Arum. "So I'm going to schedule, for late tonight, our time -- which is early in the morning in the Philippines -- to talk directly with Manny and make a decision then."
A five-time world champion, Mayweather's side is demanding that both fighters be tested using random urinalysis and blood work that could be drawn as close to the fight as possible.
Pacquiao, who is coming off of last month's 12th-round techinical knockout which dethroned Miguel Cotto for the WBO welterweight (147 pounds) title, has agreed to have urine tests done.
But Pacquiao has contended that he would prefer not to have blood drawn within 30 days of the fight because taking blood from him that close to the competition would weaken him.
The champion's assertion was challenged, however, on Monday when Mayweather's camp pointed out that Pacquiao had blood drawn during a pre-fight physical -- a procedure they believed had occurred within about two weeks of Pacquiao's second-round knockout of Ricky Hatton.
After checking with officials at HBO, however, Arum said that that notion appears to have been in error.
"We researched it, and we have all of the documentary evidence, and it was 24 days before the fight, which is very close to the 30-day period that we offered for Manny to have blood drawn. That's very significant," said Arum. "The fight was May 2, and the blood was drawn on April 8 -- 24 days before the fight. HBO made a mistake by saying that it was done at a period that they indicated was 14 days."
Arum said that the HBO footage -- as well as the notion of moving ahead with a Mayweather fight -- was brought up during his conversation with Koncz, who indicated that Pacquiao, nevertheless, wanted to go in a different direction.
"As far as I'm concerned, I really, really believe that the best course of action is to forget about this fight now, and to revisit it in the fall -- if then -- when everybody cools down," said Arum, who had first considered New York junior welterweight (140 pounds) Paulie Malignaggi (27-3, five KOs) -- who also believes Pacquiao should be randomly blood-tested -- as a replacement for Mayweather.
"The people viewing it from the Philippines, and the Pacquiao camp, they're very, very angry people," said Arum. "I just don't think that they're going to be very receptive."
But another, potentially damaging question for Pacquiao was raised in a Christmas Day article written by New York Daily News columnist, Tim Smith, a boxing scribe for more than two decades and a 2005 winner of The Boxing Writer's Association of America's prestigious Nat Fleischer Award for excellence in fight coverage.
Citing "a source familiar with the talks," Smith wrote that "Pacquiao's representatives asked what penalties Pacquiao would face if he tested dirty, and also if a dirty test result could be kept secret so that the integrity of the fight wouldn't be ruined in the public eye."
"Those are disturbing requests," wrote Smith. "It could just be due diligence on the part of the attorneys negotiating the contract or it could be that Pacquiao has something to hide."
But in a prepared statement issued on Tuesday, Pacquiao blamed Golden Boy and Mayweather Promotions for "twisting facts," claiming that Mayweather, himself, has accused the Filipino fighter of being "into some kind of 'roids," of having, "used other banned substances," and "directly accused [Pacquiao] of performance enhancement drug use."
"For including my country in the picture, claiming that we are producers of the best performance enhancing drugs, Mayweather and those who are guilty need to get punished," said Pacquiao. "The sooner, the better -- whether it be in the courts or in the ring."
Golden Boy Promotions has received offficial notification of Pacquiao's plan to sue their company, Mayweather, and his father, Floyd Mayweather Sr., for defamation of character, said Arum.
"This morning [Tuesday], they'll get the letter about the lawsuit. It was sent today by Manny's attorney and our attorney in Los Angeles, Daniel Petrocelli, who is one of the top litigators," said Arum. "We've taken whatever legal steps have to be taken, and we put them on notice for that."
Source: boxing.fanhouse.com
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