Pacquiao-Mayweather: ‘Myriad points’ of negotiation before fight
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Manny Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum said Wednesday that crafting a deal for the Filipino star to fight Floyd Mayweather Jr. should Pacquiao defeat Juan Manuel Marquez on Saturday night is not as simple as observers might think.
Mayweather’s camp came out last week expressing interest in a Pacquiao fight in May in Las Vegas, and Pacquiao has expressed an eagerness to fight the unbeaten Mayweather, who in September scored a controversial fourth-round knockout of Victor Ortiz.
A deal to make the fight has collapsed three times before, mostly over Mayweather’s insistence that Pacquiao be subjected to the scrutiny of an Olympic-style drug-testing program.
Hard feelings between the fighters hasn’t helped. Mayweather claimed in a video once that Pacquiao used ‘power pellets’ to become boxing’s top pound-for-pound fighter, and Pacquiao has sued Mayweather for defamation.
Arum has in recent months expressed a willingness to commit to the drug testing, but Wednesday he said there are ‘myriad points’ of negotiation beyond that to get a deal done.
Those familiar with past talks say that routine bargaining over such issues as who will be introduced first in the ring can be sorted out easily enough. The difficult part will be haggling how the purse will be split, how much money will be guaranteed, and what percentage of the pay-per-view sales’ ‘upside’ the fighters are willing to risk for a later cash reward.
Arum doesn’t have much patience for discussing anything other than Pacquiao-Marquez III at the MGM Grand, for now, but those familiar with the process say any post-fight talks probably will begin with the Mayweather camp instructing Golden Boy Promotions Chief Executive Richard Schaefer to pick up the phone and set up a meeting with Arum.
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