Deadline for Mayweather to Sign Contract Approaches
As the clock ticks, Floyd Mayweather Jr., The Ring Magazine’s No.2 pound-for-pound fighter in the world, has just hours to decide whether he will accept the terms of a contract with Manny Pacquiao for a bout in November. The two have been dancing around a projected fight for months now, with both sides apparently more interested in keeping the dance going than putting on the gloves.
Promoter Bob Arum recently said in a report to ESPN: "We're ready to go on with the Mayweather fight. But we have to make contingency plans just in case, and I don't really want to talk about that too much.”
Arum promotes seven-time world champion Manny Pacquiao. He said that his side has already submitted a proposal to Mayweather’s handlers, and said that details involving drug testing and revenue split have largely been flattened out. They had previously been large barriers to successful negotiations.
Ball in Mayweather's court
Apparently all that is halting the bout at this point is a Mayweather signature on the dotted line.
“Mayweather has until the end of the week. He could wait until the last minute. If it's Friday and it's 11 p.m., and he says we have a deal, we have a deal," Arum remarked, suggesting that even if Mayweather misses the imposed deadline of Thursday, July 15th, he would accept the other side’s concessions.
Arum willing to look elsewhere
Arum also expressed a desire to look elsewhere for cards if the bout ultimately can’t be saved. "That's the fight we want and that's the fight we're in for, but if we can't do that fight there are other opponents.”
Some contestants under consideration for Manny Pacquiao include former world champion Antonio Margarito, and the World Boxing Association (WBA) junior middleweight champion, Miguel Cotto. The former, however, is currently suspended from professional boxing after it was determined his wraps had illegal plaster in them in a bout with Shane Mosley.
Pacquiao’s Canadian Confidant, Michael Koncz, already had a “positive” meeting with Miguel Cotto, whom Pacquiao defeated in a 145-pound match last November.
Bob Arum suggested that Mayweather ought to decide soon, so that he and the other side of the promotional team, Oscar de la Hoya and his Golden Boy Productions, can go to work in promoting the mega-fight, which would be on the largest grossing matches in boxing history.
It would also breathe life into a sport that has seen declining numbers and rating all around for the last few years. Boxing has been losing steam to mixed martial arts, which now threatens to become the North American staple of combative sports.
"He [Mayweather] might not want to fight again this year. If he wants to say, 'See you next year,' there's always next year. But I don't think we can wait much longer for him to make up his mind, because if we do the fight we want to make it as big as we can make it, and that takes time. I think Floyd will give us the courtesy of a response one way or the other. What that response will be, I really don't know,” Arum shrugged.
Arum presents an interesting business perspective. For many it has been Mayweather all along who has consciously avoided the terms of the fight, stating that he would only sign with the stipulations that he receive a bigger purse, and that Pacquiao be subject to drug tests fourteen days before the fight.
Some analysts have their doubts about the fight. Boxing historian Bert Sugar dismissed it, saying: “I don’t see it happening. At least not this year. I don’t and never did.”
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