Arum optimistic, De La Hoya says it's almost done, but Ariza believes Mayweather won't fight Pacquiao

By Ronnie Nathanielsz, PhilBoxing.com

While Top Rank promoter Bob Arum remains optimistic and Golden Boy Promotions Oscar De La Hoya claims a mega-buck fight between pound-for-pound king and “Fighter of the Decade” Manny Pacquiao and undefeated Floyd Mayweather Jr is almost done, Pacquiao’s conditioning expert Alex Ariza believes it won’t happen because Mayweather doesn’t want to lose.

Ariza said the report that Mayweather was going to take “a little bit of time off ” and the fact that the Nevada State Athletic Commission “slammed the door on the US Anti Doping Agency” by indicating that random drug testing is not going to be a part of the pre and post-fight procedure is certain to make it more difficult to arrive at an agreement.

Ariza stressed what he’s always said and that Mayweather “is afraid to fight Pacquiao.” He said a defeat at the hands of Pacquiao would mean that “for the rest of his life Mayweather will always be associated with the biggest fight in boxing history as the loser of that fight. He wouldn’t be able to deal with that.”

The conditioning guru said “I don’t think you can put a price on that and I think Mayweather is afraid of that (losing) because being undefeated is the only thing that validates Mayweather in his heart and in the sport.”

Given this possibility Ariza said a rematch with newly crowned WBA light middleweight champion Miguel Cotto “is very likely” stating that Pacquiao can win his eighth title in eight different divisions and solidify his position as the greatest fighter. He said fighting Antonio Margarito was also an option and “would be a good fight for us” even as he mentioned Juan Manuel Marquez as another possible opponent.

Asked whether fighting Cotto at 154 pounds would be difficult for Pacquiao, Ariza replied “I don’t think so. I think Manny can knockout Cotto at 154.”

Pacquiao scored a dominating 12th round TKO over Cotto to win the Puerto Rican’s WBO welterweight title and the WBC “Diamond Belt” last November and Ariza feels the extra weight won’t make a difference.

Arum who has been quietly striving to reach and agreement with Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer on a Pacquiao-Mayweather fight said the other day he was still “optimistic” that it could be done.

Oscar De La Hoya on the other hand was far more direct saying "I can't talk right now in detail about the negotiations but I can say that we are very close.

Up until now, it's been a very difficult negotiation process for various reasons but right now we're very close.”

De La Hoya added "I think right now we are very, very close in finalizing the contracts.

"It's going to be a big, big fight!"

Source: philboxing.com