Arum not ready to give up on Mayweather-Pacquiao -- OC Register

By MARK WHICKER, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

The empathy of Bob Arum comes out after midnight.

He was on the phone as Friday turned into Saturday, PDT. It was 3 a.m. for the New York-based writers in the conference call audience.

Arum had presented a Friday night deadline for Floyd Mayweather Jr. to commit to fight Manny Pacquiao, the only real event on the boxing table, although it has been tabled for nearly a year now.

Mayweather said no. Well, that's not entirely true. Mayweather said nothing.

And yet here was Arum, Bombastic Bob, the guy who rails at officiating decisions on the post-fight mike, the guy who said that Edwin Valero's escapades meant that "we know there's two idiots from Venezuela" and, when asked how he could insult a head of state like Hugo Chavez, replied, "I'm 75 years old and I can't hear in one ear and I don't really care what I say."

He was pleading for mercy. For Mayweather.

"I am sure, without knowing, that there's a very good reason Mayweather has for not committing at this time," Arum said. "I don't think any of you guys should be too harsh on Floyd. The boxing fans have to realize they need to cut Floyd some slack."

Arum and others are speculating that Mayweather prefers to wait until Roger Mayweather, his uncle and trainer, stands trial on assault charges Aug. 2. This would be Roger's second conviction and might lead to a long prison sentence.

"I know how Manny would feel if he had to go into a fight like this without (trainer) Freddie Roach," said Merciful Bob.

Nevertheless, Mayweather's silence means the end of the exclusive negotiating period.

Now, Pacquiao will pick his next opponent for the Nov. 13 fight, and he'll begin with two other Arum clients, Antonio Margarito and Miguel Cotto.

"But if Floyd emerged and said he wanted to do the fight, there would be nothing opposed to us getting together and making the fight," Arum said. "That's our position and it's as clear as I can make it.

"The fight we want to do is Mayweather. It would be a shame if it didn't happen."

But if Pacquiao fights anybody between now and then, you're inviting all kinds of Murphy's Laws, in a sport that invented them.

Neither Cotto or Margarito make you circle the calendar.

Pacquiao blitzed Cotto last November at the MGM Grand. Arum is trying to persuade us that Emanuel Steward's presence in Cotto's corner will make a difference, but it won't make Pacquiao's hands any slower. If the trainer had that much impact, Roach would have coached Oscar De La Hoya past Mayweather.

Margarito is still under suspension in the U.S. for the loaded-glove incident before the Shane Mosley fight. He would need a special license to fight in Nevada, but Arum leans toward staging that fight in Monterrey, Mexico, anyway because Pacquiao wouldn't take such a haymaker from the taxman.

But who knows about Pacquiao? Since his victory over sudden pacifist Joshua Clottey last November, Pacquiao has been a politician. He scored an upset to make the Phillippine congress, and now has to handle that particular exercise in pugilism at least three days a week.

"He will train on the four days that congress isn't in session, from what I understand," Arum said. "He wouldn't come to work at Wild Card (Roach's L.A. gym) until three weeks before the fight. But the fight itself wouldn't be a problem. They wouldn't be able to get a quorum (in Congress) when Manny fights, so they will take three weeks off."

Arum's first preference for a site is Cowboys Stadium, since he envisions at least 100,000 there for Pacquiao-Mayweather. However, the MGM Grand casino set records, during Pacquiao-Cotto weekend, thanks to epicurean gambling by Pacquiao's fans.

But if Pacquiao wants an interesting challenge, or if he wants to juice up the sport in general, he could pick Tim Bradley or Paul Williams.

Bradley is quick and fearless, Williams is 6-foot-3 and frenetic, and both deserve something like this.

And here is where you run into the problem with boxing. It is not a meritocracy. It belongs to the promoters and the networks, and has no commissioner like the UFC does.

"They're tremendous fighters," Arum said. "But Williams hasn't been promoted correctly and he can't sell a ticket. These promoters take money from HBO or Showtime or a little Indian casino and they think they're doing their fighters a service. We spend hundreds of thousands promoting our fighters. I'm not going to give them (Bradley and Williams) a free ride."

There is a limit to empathy, even after dark.

But clearly Arum and the rest of us are thinking the same thing: Pac-Floyd is probable for May 2011.

You grasp for anything, in lieu of knowing what Mayweather thinks.

mwhicker@ocregister.com

Source: ocregister.com