Undefeated welterweight Floyd Mayweather Jr. has been mostly quiet and out of the boxing picture since his arrest on domestic battery charges in September. Mayweather appeared in court last month to face the felony charges, but his hearing was moved to March.
But the controversial boxer, who is on boxing fans' most wanted list for a megafight against Manny Pacquiao that could be the richest in boxing history, did a rare interview late last month with Fighthype.com.
In that wide-ranging interview, Mayweather said, "After the first negotiations didn't come through, nobody reached out to Al (Haymon, Mayweather's manager)" regarding a fight with Pacquiao, and "we didn't hear anything from Bob Arum."Arum on Wednesday called that absurd. "We not only reached out, we had a full negotiation with (HBO Sports President) Ross Greenburg being the intermediary with Al Haymon back before the Margarito fight. And that came to nothing. And I assume Haymon advised Floyd that we were negotiating the fight through Greenburg. But (saying) we didn't reach out to Haymon was total nonsense.
"As far as Floyd is concerned, we've attempted to reach him without any success. He knows where we are. And none of his people have ever called us. The idea that we haven't reached out is absurd. … We've gotten no calls from him. …
"Why the hell should we reach out to Al Haymon when they have constantly said that they're not interested in fighting? Let them call us. … I'm not going to reach out to them like I'm chasing them. But if they said to a responsible newspaper or somebody responsible, 'We want to fight Manny Pacquiao,' I would make the call."
HBO had no comment on the subject, and Mayweather's adviser, Leonard Ellerbe, could not be reached by phone.
A few other subjects Mayweather touched on in the FightHype.com interview:
•On Arum's company, Top Rank, taking the May 7 Pacquiao-Shane Mosley fight from HBO to Showtime pay-per-view: "All I have to say is that I'm loyal to HBO. I can't believe Bob Arum and Manny Pacquiao's camp would cut HBO out."
•On Pacquiao: "I really don't have nothing against Manny Pacquiao. I think the people make it more than what it really is, because I think it will be one of the biggest fights in boxing history, absolutely. … You got to realize this, the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight didn't get made because Manny Pacquiao said he wanted two weeks of non-testing … the two weeks before the fight. … Everything they asked of me, I agreed, and what I asked of them, they didn't agree."
Countered Arum: "We agreed to do tests. That was off the table."
•On Shane Mosley, who was beaten badly by Mayweather and Pacquiao: "I don't think Shane really has too much left at 39. … He's a future Hall of Famer, but he was in a grueling fight with me. … I think that was his last hurrah."
Kayode thinks KO: Lateef "Power" Kayode, the unbeaten cruiserweight who is trained by Freddie Roach, fights Nicholas Iannuzzi (16-1-9 KOs) in a 10-round bout Friday on Showtime (11 p.m. ET).
Kayode (15-0, 14 KOs), from Nigeria, has a 14-fight knockout streak. He concedes he thinks about KOs during his fights but says it doesn't affect his game plan or preparation. "There's no doubt it's in the back of my mind," Kayode says. "I know the fans love it, and I know Showtime loves it. But I'm not going to let that affect what I do in the ring."
Source: usatoday.com
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