In recent months, with emphatic victory right after emphatic victory, Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao each staked a claim to becoming boxing’s best. But their dream bout remains uncertain, even unlikely.
The pendulum swung back toward Mayweather after his destruction of Shane Mosley on Saturday night. Mayweather proved he could overcome two shots that buckled him, and he silenced critics with an onslaught of righteous right hands.
But Mayweather’s newest boxing clinic only served to harden the stances of two sides that remain as far apart as their modern locations, here and inside the Philippines.
Pacquiao is nonetheless opposed to blood testing and is running for a congressional seat back home. Mayweather is even now demanding blood screening and running his ever-active mouth.
“I paved the way,” he said. “All roads result in Floyd Mayweather.”
Boxing being boxing, the fight that makes probably the most sense, the only welterweight fight that extremely makes any sense at all, remains in jeopardy. Early projections location Mayweather-Mosley pay-per-view buys inside quantity of 1.3 million to 1.7 million, which would be the second highest between nonheavyweight bouts, behind Mayweather’s record-setting fight with Oscar De La Hoya.
In November, Pacquiao’s brutal beating of Miguel Cotto shot his stock skyward, but the P.P.V. numbers and interest in this fight only bolstered Mayweather’s claim to getting boxing’s biggest draw. Both sides insist they wish to deliver a bout in between Mayweather and Pacquiao, but what both really mean is they desire to make that fight happen on their terms.
Bob Arum, Pacquiao’s promoter with Top Rank Boxing, stated his camp was now focused over a election, where, based on some polls, Pacquiao had jumped ahead. Should Pacquiao be elected, Arum mentioned he would fight no earlier than November. Should Pacquiao lose, he could fight in September or October.
Late Saturday, both De La Hoya and Mayweather mentioned that Mayweather’s newest performance awarded him the potential to dictate terms.
“I’m closer to 40 than I am to 20,” Mayweather, 33, said. “I’m not chasing fighters.”
Arum responded: “He can dictate all he wants. As far as Pacquiao is concerned, nobody needs him. It’s delusional. It’s silly.”
The fighters agreed to an even monetary split in January, but ought to Mayweather once more triumph in P.P.V. numbers, he is less most likely to make the same compromise once negotiations resume following the election. In addition, Pacquiao is suing Mayweather’s camp for defamation.
Mosley and Mayweather underwent blood diagnostic tests for their fight, an problem that threatens to derail future negotiations in between Mayweather and Pacquiao, the way it did previously.
“It wouldn’t be beneficial for boxing,” Arum said. “Obviously, these a couple of guys need to fight each other. That being said, it takes two to tango.”
After Pacquiao beat Cotto, Ross Greenburg, the president of HBO Sports, clamored for Mayweather as Pacquiao’s next opponent. He took a far more measured tone more than the weekend, in large component since the last round of negotiations turned ugly and public.
“We must do anything we can, and what we need to do, we’ll need to do quietly this time around,” he said. “That’s about all I can say. We now have to accomplish it quietly.”
Lost somewhat in this standard boxing back-and-forth are a couple of specific fighters nearing the end of their primes. Previous to he retired, De La Hoya faced Mayweather, Pacquiao and Mosley. On Saturday, he firmly and repeatedly labeled Mayweather the best of that impressive threesome.
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