By David Mayo, The Grand Rapids Press
Bob Arum, promoter for boxer Manny Pacquiao, said he is “very optimistic” that talks for a Floyd Mayweather fight will reach a successful conclusion this year after similar discussions failed last winter, although he declined to give any specific reason for that sentiment.
Arum also said he has reserved a Nov. 13 date at both MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas and Cowboys Stadium in Dallas if the fight reaches fruition.
Mayweather, of Grand Rapids, already has said he won’t fight Pacquiao in Dallas and that the fight won’t happen at all if the Filipino star doesn’t yield to his demand for random blood and urine drug testing.
Arum was in The Philippines with Pacquiao, where the latter won election to a congressional seat this week, and said discussions about fighting Mayweather came up on several occasions.
He said Pacquiao “definitely will fight in November” and that, based on their discussions, he expects the boxer to compete three more times before retiring.
Mayweather and Pacquiao, both welterweights, widely are considered the two best boxers in the world and a fight between them would be projected to break all existing records for live gate and pay-per-view receipts.
If Pacquiao doesn’t fight Mayweather, his first backup option would be to fight Antonio Margarito, Arum said. However, Margarito remains on suspension and would have to regain his license after he was caught with loaded hand wraps before fighting Shane Mosley in January 2009.
Arum said “my first goal, and Manny’s first goal” is to make the Mayweather fight.
“But we’re not going to do it in the press and we’re not going to negotiate this thing in the press,” he said. “If we do, given the egos of both camps, it’s never going to happen.”
Arum confirmed comments this week from Mayweather’s adviser Leonard Ellerbe that negotiations have not started.
He also declined to discuss how to initiate such talks, particularly given the sticking point of a defamation lawsuit, filed in federal court on behalf of Pacquiao, against Mayweather, Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer, and other key members of Mayweather’s boxing and negotiating teams.
“There is a plan,” Arum said. “I don’t want to go into what’s happening, but there are things happening on the ground.
“I have my marching orders and it will be sooner rather than later.”
Last winter’s failed talks centered on the drug-testing expansion, upon which Mayweather insisted. The attendant innuendo and outright accusation that Pacquiao has used performance-enhancing drugs led to the lawsuit.
The talks went all the way to a mediation effort before a retired federal judge before they broke apart, but communication delays also had a negative effect. With every new proposal, Arum had to talk to Pacquiao, and Schaefer had to talk with Mayweather’s representatives. Resolutions on minor matters sometimes took days.
Arum said bringing the two fighters together is impossible now that Pacquiao is an elected politician.
“My guy is too busy with his congressional duties,” he said. “He’s a congressman, man, he’s got plenty of responsibilities. That’s why he’s got to delegate a lot of these things. No, the answer is that he couldn’t do it. He doesn’t have the time to do it.
“You have to understand, he’s not a congressman like U.S. congressmen are. He will get an allocation from the federal government of hundreds of millions of pesos, hundreds of millions of dollars in American money, that he has to allocate for hospitals -- and there’s no hospital in this province -- for the schools, the municipalities. It’s a tremendous, tremendous job that he has. And to sit and negotiate a fight is not something that’s productive.”
Pacquiao does, however, have “time to train and perform at his best for a fight.”
As Arum waited in the Manila airport this week, he said it was “amazing, as I was leaving, how many people asked me ‘When is the Mayweather fight going to happen?’”
Arum, a Hall of Fame promoter with 44 years in boxing, said promoting Mayweather-Pacquiao would be “one of the great experiences of my career."
E-mail David Mayo: dmayo@grpress.com and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/David_Mayo
Source: mlive.com
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