By Michael Marley, Examiner
Funny thing about the reporting business. Whether you’re covering figure skating, boxing or the price of copper futures, you’re often either knocking down someone else’s story or confirming same, maybe even adding details to the other guy’s story.
In the case of Ben Thompson’s Fighthype.com report about a $75 million purse offer to both Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather, I can confirm some of the details.
(This comes on top of Bob Arum and Michael Koncz on the Pacman side relating how Mayweather ostensibly squashed a $65 million purse offer for the so called “Dream Fight” by demanding $10 million upfront from a Singapore based consortium. Then, late Sunday, came a report out of the Philippines in which Pacquiao’s close pal and wealthy business mogul-politician Gov. Luis “Chavit” Singson told Inquiere.net he’s discussed a Canelo Alvarez-Pacquiao bout for 2012 in Mexico for which Mexican billionaire and telecommunications czar Carlos Slim Helu would fork over a $65 million purse to Manny for a bout which might be akin to child abuse if it were not for the fact that the popular flame-haired Mexican boxer turns age 21 come July 18.)
Btw, I think we can all envision these theoretical purses zooming past the $100 million for Floyd and Manny if either or both showed any real enthusiasm for making the fight.
Back to Big Ben at Mayweather’s self-chosen bulletin board website.
A Filipino gentleman and a black American are the guys behind the purported $75 million purse offers and they are complete boxing novices. The American guy said he’s a big macher in the music business.
Originally, they spoke about paying the entire $150 million upfront, upon contract signing to Mayweather and to Pacman. (Now they say they will “only” pay $25 million upon signing to Floyd and Manny.)
Originally, they said they wished to put the huge fight at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, carelessly eschewing see what kind of multimillion dollar site fee they might gouge Las Vegas for.
One big difference in the Alvarez-Pacquiao and Mayweather-Pacquiao scenarios is that Slim is often listed as being as wealthy or nearly so as bucks up guys such as Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. At one point, Slim was considered the richest man on the planet which sounds like an exclusive neighborhood to me.
According to Arum, the Singapore Slingers brought the offer to Mayweather henchman Tommy Smalls but that Mayweather kiboshed the deal with his $10 million upfront fee.
Somebody wake me up when the principals in the fight show some real interest in any offer.
(mlcmarley@aol.com)
Source: examiner.com
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