Surreal negotiations among representatives for Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. included a flap over drug testing, an election during the Philippines, a gag order, a 3 a.m. conference call along with a firm denial how the second round of discussions even took place.
The back-and-forth has made everything except an genuine fight.
Instead, Pacquiao will soon sign an agreement to face Antonio Margarito in November, adding another subplot towards the highly anticipated but increasingly unlikely main event.
“This is out of never-never land,” said Bob Arum, Pacquiao’s promoter with Top Rank Boxing. “I’ve observed fights fall apart for all sorts of reasons. But this really is the twilight zone.”
Boxing history is filled with this kind of strange sagas, but rarely, if ever, have 2 fighters who stand to divide some $60 million to $80 million not reached an agreement. For ones longtime HBO boxing analyst Larry Merchant, this looks “if not unique, then unimaginable.”
The stall has tiny to complete with money. Both boxers had been ranked within the Forbes Celebrity 100 list. Mayweather (No. 31) made $65 million in his last 2 fights, placing him sixth in between athletes and greater than David Beckham and Alex Rodriguez. (Pacquiao was 55th.)
“Usually, once there’s this much cash involved, they discover a way to split it up,” Merchant said. “But that’s never been an trouble here. The appearance is that Pacquiao agreed to almost all of Mayweather’s demands, and Mayweather couldn’t take in yes for an answer.”
Mayweather last fought twice during the same year in 2007, and since his triumph over Shane Mosley in May, he twice mentioned that he was not thinking about boxing. What Mayweather did not do is issue a formal statement, which seemingly would have ended all of the fuss.
Previous negotiations had imploded since Pacquiao balked at Mayweather’s desires for Olympic-style blood screening up until the fight. Right after people discussions turned acrimonious and public, a gag order went into place.
The sides disagree on what happened next. Arum stated Ross Greenburg, the president of HBO Sports, acted as an intermediary in between Top Rank and Al Haymon, a Mayweather representative. Greenburg confirmed that for your very first time Monday, saying he “had been negotiating with a representative from every side due to the fact May possibly 2.”
Arum declined to discuss specifics but stated that this time Pacquiao produced much more concessions, addressing every of Mayweather’s concerns.
Mayweather did not participate in these talks. Maybe this details never reached him. Perhaps he disagrees that these were, in fact, negotiations. But Arum and Greenburg dispute that, and Oscar De La Hoya, a Mayweather co-promoter recently, told Univision in June that the fight was “very close.”
Mayweather’s camp declined to comment Monday, but it released a statement July 19 — three days following Arum’s self-imposed fight deadline, which came complete with the early-morning conference call, had passed. The statement denied the existence of negotiations and ominously concluded, “history tells us who is lying.”
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