Question of the day: Will there ever be a Mayweather-Pacquiao fight?

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Reporters from around Tribune Co. weigh in on the topic. Check back throughout the day for more responses and feel free to leave a comment of your own.

Lance Pugmire, Los Angeles Times

This is an unknown for now, requiring the ability to read a mind. The mind needing to be read is Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s, a skill that borders on impossible, even for those close to the unbeaten boxer.

For now, we’ve been told Mayweather is in vacation mode, enjoying the lifestyle he earned by pummeling Shane Mosley on May 1 and earning $25 million, which we hear he is happily spending.

Mayweather clearly wasn’t compelled to act by the Friday midnight deadline set by Manny Pacquiao’s promoter, Bob Arum, to express interest in the proposed mega-fight, and now Arum is moving his Filipino star toward an alternate fight Nov. 13 against Antonio Margarito or Miguel Cotto.

Of course, the money that Mayweather and Pacquiao will generate by fighting each other will one day prove too impossible to reject. Mayweather’s spending habits will force him to recognize this, Pacquiao’s fear of a blood test will mysteriously vanish, and the super-fight will have more than a year of crazed fan anxiety to maximize pay-per-view dollars and ensure a live-gate sellout no matter how much tickets cost.

Check back early next year, with a fight date in place by the end of May 2011.

George Diaz, Orlando Sentinel

Floyd Mayweather’s la-di-da attitude about facing Manny Pacquiao in the mother of all super-fights is the reason pro boxing is getting it’s butt kicked by MMA. The sport is on a suicidal run, all of the major players apparently not interested in saving themselves.

But even the drunk eventually wake up sober. The fight is going to happen.

It will happen because the pile of money the fighters could have split is staggering. Each guy stands to make between $25 million to $40 million.

Somebody twists little Floyd’s arm to make him understand the consequences of his actions. Free choice, you ask? I suppose it’s OK to turn down $40 million. But in the macho-man sport world of pro boxing, maybe Little Floyd has some other concerns.

Like having Pac Man slap his arrogant face around, knocking off the invincibility of the man who professes to be the toughest pound-for-pound hombre on the planet.

Take off your diapers and come out and play, Floyd.

[Updated at 1:50 p.m.:

Paul Doyle, Hartford Courant

The Fight of the Year will apparently not happen in 2010.

With Bob Arum’s deadline passing and Floyd Mayweather Jr. more interested in hobnobbing with his celebrity friends than training for a Manny Pacquiao fight, the Nov. 13 mega-bout is off. It’s just what a sport careening toward irrelevance needs: The bout fans want is on hold because overpaid egos can’t iron out details.

So the calendar will turn without the Super Fight. We’ll hear lots more bickering from both camps as deadlines pass and demands rise.

And, eventually, we’ll see Pac Man and Mayweather touch gloves. Someone will finally get through to Mayweather and persuade him to leave the hot tub and start training for a bout that will define his career.

Or someone will convince him that he can’t pass on a $30-million to $40-million pay day. We know this about big-time sports – ultimately, money talks louder than words. With so much cash at stake, Mayweather and Pacquiao will inevitably meet.

Maybe it’ll be the Fight of 2011. Be patient, fight fans.]