Pacquiao suffers from black-white conflict of Mayweather, Arum -- Examiner

By Michael Marley, Examiner.com

If Floyd Joy Mayweather ignores the so-called Friday 5pm "deadline" seemingly imposed by the Imperial Bob Arum, then there will be no Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao bout, at least not this year.

I've been scratching and clawing trying to think of a legitimate reason for Mayweather and his minions to just let the Pacman promoter's "drop dead time" pass without even a comment.

For the life of me, I couldn't see why Mayweather would pass up or even delay until next May a bout which he and his braintrust consider "easy work" and which would garner both he and the Pinoy Idol a purse in the vicinity of $40 million.

Now I think I've hit the reason Team Mayweather may not utter a public peep come Friday.

It's black and white and I don't mean the black and white on the offer sheet or contract. I mean black like Mayweather and white like the 78 year old Arum.

It's all the gas Arum has been passing, despite the so-called agreed to media silence between the parties.

If Mayweather flips the switch Friday, if he reaches for a pen and signs a bout contract, then some will believe despite the absence of fact, that "Marsa Bob Arum" (as former boxing muckraker Flash Gordon termed him) is just running his "Top Rank Plantation" (another Gordon term) like days of yore.

Bad, old days according to Floyd Mayweather, when Bob Arum was HIS promoter (AP Photo)

Don't ever undestimate how much Arum makes Mayweather's skin crawl. Mayweather bought his contractual "freedom" from Arum and nearly always chafed at his control and the enmity between them has not lessened since their fractious split.

Arum has many thinking he called the tune on all or nearly all the material terms of a proposed contract.

Mayweather won't want to be viewed as having rolled over for his ex-promoter especially after having charged Arum with gouging first himself and now the Filipino on division of fight revenue.

Which brings us to this legitimate inquiry, is it really Arum who demanded terms he knew Mayweather would find onerous both in substance and presentation?

Right now, public perception is that Mayweather is sitting idle with a take it or leave it deal.

After the Friday afternoon whistle blows, maybe both L'il Floyd and Big Bob will have gotten what they wanted.

For Mayweather, he'll be perceived as Fraud Duckweather by the Pacquiao Worldwide Army (PWA) as I call them and by a standup, no shuck and jive guy who did not respond to Dictator Arum.

For Arum, he can milk Manny for a November bout against either Miguel Cotto or Antonio Margarito and know that Floyd-Manny can be reassembled for 2011.

So who's getting the short end of the stick?

Look in the mirror, Pacman.

You're not black or white but you're getting caught in the middle of a spite fight between Floyd and his former handler.

(mlcmarley@aol.com)

Source: examiner.com