Arum remains upbeat about putting together Mayweather-Pacquiao bout for 2011

Despite having no luck in trying to put together a mega fight between unbeaten Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao recently, Top Rank promoter Bob Arum remains optimistic about his chances of putting together a fight in the future in early 2011. Above all, Arum refuses to take it personal that Mayweather wasn’t interested in fighting Pacquiao at this time and is going to continue work on trying to set up the fight in early 2011 starting in May. In article at Sbsun.com, Arum says “Take a deep breath, we’ll fight somebody else and renew this thing next year without causing any bad feelings. That’s what adults do. That is what normal people do, not desperados who feel that they have to stand on their heads so that their boss is happy.”

Arum is showing good business sense by taking the high road, taking a mature outlook and not personalizing all of that controversy surrounding the failed fight with Mayweather. If the fight between Mayweather and Pacquiao is to be put together next year, Arum needs to stay focused on trying to negotiate it without getting caught up in all the turmoil surrounding this fight.

In the meantime, Arum will have Pacquiao staying busy fighting former two-time welterweight champion Antonio Margarito on November 13th for the vacant World Boxing Council junior middleweight title in either Las Vegas, Nevada or Monterrey, Mexico. As of now, Margarito doesn’t have a license to fight in the United States. However, that could change very soon. Behind the scenes, Arum is working on trying to get the license back through the Nevada Athletic Commission and if he can get them to meet with Margarito a second time, there’s a good chance that Margarito will have his license back in time for the November 13th fight.

The Nevada Athletic Commission recently rejected Margarito’s attempt to re re-licensed, rejecting him attempt by a 4-1 vote. They then advised him to go back to the California Athletic Commission to reapply there. It was the California Commission that revoked Margarito’s boxing license for one year after a plaster-like substance was found on Margarito’s hand wraps before his fight against Shane Mosley in January 2009. Margarito served his year suspension but still needs to reapply with the California Commission. The problem is that the California Commission’s next meeting is in September, and Margarito and Arum cannot afford to wait that long with a fight against Pacquiao taking place in November. They have to know where the venue will be for that fight long before that.

As for Mayweather, he’s not said who he plans on fighting next or if he plans on fighting again this year. Mayweather, however, could surprise a lot of people by snatching another big named opponent before the end of the year to try and take away some of the thunder from Pacquiao’s bout against Margarito.

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Arum says Pacquiao has made significant concessions for Mayweather bout

Top Rank promoter Bob Arum, speaking to the Los Angeles Times, said that his fighter Manny Pacquiao has made significant concessions to make the fight happen with Floyd Mayweather Jr. for November.

Arum didn’t say what those concessions are, but the LA Times article mentioned the 14 day blood testing cutoff, which Pacquiao agreed to before the negotiations with Mayweather started recently. It would be sad if this was the extent of the concessions because it would seem that 14 days might not be good enough to appease Mayweather this time, even though that’s what he asked for during the failed negotiations with Pacquiao and Arum in January of this year.

At the time, Pacquiao wouldn’t budge from his stance of wanting the random blood testing to stop 24 days before the fight. With the negotiations at a stalemate, Pacquiao then fought Joshua Clottey on March 13th, beating him by a lopsided 12 round decision. Mayweather, in turn, defeated Shane Mosley by an even more lopsided 12 round decision on May 1st. Later, when Pacquiao agreed to the 14 days cutoff, Arum seemed happy, thinking that this would solve a big part of putting together a Mayweather-Pacquiao fight this time.

After all, that was the one sticking point that held back the negotiations from going forward. Mayweather and Pacquiao had already agreed on a 50-50 cut. However, information leaked out where Mayweather was no longer asking for a 50-50 deal, and wanted a cut of 60-40 for a Pacquiao fight.

With everything different this time, Arum seemed to be going by the mindset of the last negotiations being good enough to make the fight happen between Mayweather and Pacquiao.

Things had changed since then, though. Pacquiao’s fight with Clottey didn’t do nearly as well as Mayweather’s fight against Mosley. This would explain why Pacquiao’s concessions might not be enough this time to make the fight.

Arum later learned that the blood testing that was done for the Mayweather-Mosley fight was stopped 18 days before their fight for some reason. Arum said “We don’t care who’s doing the test. They stopped taking blood 18 days before [Mayweather vs. Mosley], so that shows they can do it and be fine.”

Things aren’t that simple. Mayweather distrusts Pacquiao, and wants blood testing to be done all the way up until the fight with him. He won’t be satisfied with testing that stops 14+ days before the fight. Pacquiao feels weakened when having his blood tested and wants enough time for him to recover from the procedure.

Arum isn’t getting anywhere by mentioning what happened with the Mayweather-Mosley blood testing as a way of making it easier for Pacquiao. The fact of the matter is Mayweather doesn’t feel comfortable with fighting Pacquiao unless he’s tested thoroughly.

Hopefully, 14 days isn’t the concession that Arum is taking about, because that means the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight probably won’t happen because Mayweather will likely want Pacquiao to agree to test well within 14 days. And the 50-50 deal from before also won’t likely work this time around.

That will probably have to change as well, if not this time, then in the next negotiations. Mayweather will probably want a bigger cut of the percentage and will likely point to his better PPV numbers as a reason for it.

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Arum says Mayweather-Pacquiao have agreed to terms

The management for both Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao has reportedly agreed to terms for a fight that will likely be taking place on November 13th. According to Sportsillustrated.com, Top Rank promoter Bob Arum said that the deal has been agreed by Mayweather’s management side. However, Arum is still waiting for Mayweather to accept the terms and decide whether he wants to take the fight with Pacquiao. If Arum is saying that Mayweather’s management has agreed to the terms, it must mean that Mayweather’s wishes have been granted in terms of the contract negotiations.

That still doesn’t mean that there will be a fight between Mayweather and Pacquiao in November. Mayweather may decide he wants something different or it could be that Arum spoke too soon. Whatever the case, Arum has given until July 15th for Mayweather to agree to take the fight. If not, then Arum will look to use his Plan B backup opponent, which will be either Miguel Cotto or Antonio Margarito, both of which fight for Arum.

This is what Arum had to say on the matter: “This really depends, as I see it, on whether Mayweather wants to fight. By mid July, he’s either in or out. We’re not going to wait forever. We’re going to have a fight on November 13 and we would love it to be Mayweather. Nobody is under any obligation to fight this year. He [Mayweather] may need more time. When he is ready, we are prepared to do the fight.”

Previously, there was talk of this being Pacquiao’s last fight of his career. However, Arum isn’t giving up on the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight from being made if it doesn’t take place this time, leaving the window open for a fight next year in May between Pacquiao and Mayweather. This is interesting, and hopefully boxing fans will still want to see it.

If Mayweather and Pacquiao’s two management teams start negotiating early next year, it would be an entire year that they’ve gone back and forth trying to unsuccessfully put together a fight. By this point, there would be a real danger that a lot of the boxing fans might lose interest in the fight. Clearly, a lot of fans will still want to see it take place, but perhaps not nearly as many as when the two first attempted to negotiate a fight earlier this year.

Arum will go ahead and match Pacquiao up with Cotto or Margarito at the Cowboy Stadium, in Arlington. That fight won’t likely do any better than Cotto’s fight with Pacquiao last year. Seeing the same opponent matched up with Pacquiao probably won’t be a point of interest for the casual boxing fans. However, the diehard Cotto and Pacquiao fans will scoop it up regardless of how little of a chance Cotto has in the fight. There’s a chance, probably not a good one, that Pacquiao will fight Margarito next.

However, for that to happen, Margarito will have to get his boxing license back in the United States and right now that’s still an unknown whether he will get it back at this time. Either way, the Cotto-Pacquiao fight would likely bring in better numbers than a Pacquiao-Margarito fight, even though there would be little suspense about who would win the fight. Cotto was badly overmatched last time he fought Pacquiao, and nothing will probably change much in a rematch.

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Roach says we’ll know within a week if the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight is going to happen

Freddie Roach, who trains WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao, says that they’ll know within a week if Pacquiao will be fighting Floyd Mayweather Jr. next on November 13th. If the fight doesn’t happen, then Roach, and Top Rank promoter Bob Arum, will instead steer Pacquiao into a fight against another Top Rank fighter WBA light middleweight champion Miguel Cotto or former IBF/WBA welterweight champion Antonio Margarito for a fight at the Cowboy Stadium, in Arlington, Texas.

In an interview at 590 AM in Toronto,, Roach said “We’re [Pacquiao] going to fight November 13th against somebody, and me and Manny both hope that it’s Mayweather. We’re trying to make every benefit we can to make that happen. I talked to Bob Arum and he told me that he will know within a week if the deal is going to be done or not. Again, we obviously want Mayweather. He has a big mouth and we’re going to shut him up.”

Here we go again with Arum, Roach and Pacquiao about to walk out on negotiations prematurely and look in another direction. Instead of sticking it out and going the final yard to make the Mayweather fight happen, they will, judging the looks of things, be abandoning the negotiating soon in order to pick Cotto or Margarito to fight. This is pretty much what happened last time they tried to negotiate with Mayweather.

Everything was agreed on but the random blood testing. Mayweather wanted a 14 day cutoff and Pacquiao wanted 24 days. Instead of sticking it out a little longer and meeting halfway, Pacquiao, Arum and Roach instead chose Joshua Clottey to fight and ended up with mediocre pay per view numbers in a totally boring fight. Roach said that Clottey would be a more exciting fight than Mayweather.

Boy, was Roach ever wrong. You can bet that Cotto will be selected next for Pacquiao to fight if the Mayweather bout doesn’t get made. I don’t know about you, but I have no interest whatsoever in seeing Pacquiao demolish Cotto again, especially when it means that I would have pay to see it. Isn’t there anyone else that Pacquiao can be matched up against instead of fighting Cotto again?

That seems to lack inventiveness. It’s like making spaghetti one night and then choosing to make it again the next night, simply because you can’t come up with a better idea. If this is going to be Pacquiao’s last fight of his career, which I highly doubt, then doesn’t he deserve someone new for a change? Whatever. If they choose Cotto, then I hope they’re not surprised if the PPV numbers turn out to be less than they had hoped for.

Supposedly, Arum wants to get the Mayweather fight signed as soon as possible so that he can start marketing the fight to the public. However, I think it’s a ploy to put pressure on Mayweather to step up and sign quickly. For Mayweather not to have agreed with the terms of the negotiations thus far, it must be something in there that he still doesn’t like. July is about to start, and the fight won’t take place until mid November. I see this as a move by Arum to cause Mayweather to make a quick decision before he’s ready, and before he’s gotten what he wanted out of the negotiations.

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Freddie Roach, who trains WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao, says that they’ll know within a week if Pacquiao will be fighting Floyd Mayweather Jr. next on November 13th. If the fight doesn’t happen, then Roach, and Top Rank promoter Bob Arum, will instead steer Pacquiao into a fight against another Top Rank fighter WBA light middleweight champion Miguel Cotto or former IBF/WBA welterweight champion Antonio Margarito for a fight at the Cowboy Stadium, in Arlington, Texas.

In an interview at 590 AM in Toronto,, Roach said “We’re [Pacquiao] going to fight November 13th against somebody, and me and Manny both hope that it’s Mayweather. We’re trying to make every benefit we can to make that happen. I talked to Bob Arum and he told me that he will know within a week if the deal is going to be done or not. Again, we obviously want Mayweather. He has a big mouth and we’re going to shut him up.”Here we go again with Arum, Roach and Pacquiao about to walk out on negotiations prematurely and look in another direction. Instead of sticking it out and going the final yard to make the Mayweather fight happen, they will, judging the looks of things, be abandoning the negotiating soon in order to pick Cotto or Margarito to fight. This is pretty much what happened last time they tried to negotiate with Mayweather.

Everything was agreed on but the random blood testing. Mayweather wanted a 14 day cutoff and Pacquiao wanted 24 days. Instead of sticking it out a little longer and meeting halfway, Pacquiao, Arum and Roach instead chose Joshua Clottey to fight and ended up with mediocre pay per view numbers in a totally boring fight. Roach said that Clottey would be a more exciting fight than Mayweather.

Boy, was Roach ever wrong. You can bet that Cotto will be selected next for Pacquiao to fight if the Mayweather bout doesn’t get made. I don’t know about you, but I have no interest whatsoever in seeing Pacquiao demolish Cotto again, especially when it means that I would have pay to see it. Isn’t there anyone else that Pacquiao can be matched up against instead of fighting Cotto again?

That seems to lack inventiveness. It’s like making spaghetti one night and then choosing to make it again the next night, simply because you can’t come up with a better idea. If this is going to be Pacquiao’s last fight of his career, which I highly doubt, then doesn’t he deserve someone new for a change? Whatever. If they choose Cotto, then I hope they’re not surprised if the PPV numbers turn out to be less than they had hoped for.

Supposedly, Arum wants to get the Mayweather fight signed as soon as possible so that he can start marketing the fight to the public. However, I think it’s a ploy to put pressure on Mayweather to step up and sign quickly. For Mayweather not to have agreed with the terms of the negotiations thus far, it must be something in there that he still doesn’t like. July is about to start, and the fight won’t take place until mid November. I see this as a move by Arum to cause Mayweather to make a quick decision before he’s ready, and before he’s gotten what he wanted out of the negotiations.

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Arum shoots down a report about the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight already being set

Earlier today, there was a report out from NBCsports.com about the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Manny Pacquiao bout being set for “late November” and taking place in an outside arena being build by Steve Wynn. I knew it was too good to be true. Michael Marley of Examiner.com contacted Arum, who had this to say about the report:

“First of all, the date remains November 13. We’re not going on November 27, because nobody wants to go on Thanksgiving weekend. The prior Saturday, November 20 is on hold for a UFC pay per view even here. As far as the venue goes, if Wynn winds up with it, we’ll go at the Thomas & Mack Center at UNLV. The alternative to that is the MGM Grand and their Grand Garden. What you’re reporting is just not true.”

This is too bad, because there are massive amounts of boxing fans that are waiting and hoping that the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight can somehow get made. The date for the fight, if it does take place, will be on November 13th and will likely take place in Las Vegas. Mayweather has said that he doesn’t want to fight in Texas. However, Arum has still booked both the Cowboy Stadium, in Arlington, Texas, and the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada, just in case.

If the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight falls through, then Arum will put in another opponent with Pacquiao for what will probably be the last fight of his career. Arum would like to match Pacquiao up with either Miguel Cotto or Antonio Margarito. The Mayweather-Pacquiao negotiations are said to be stuck on the random blood testing cut date and the split of the purse. Mayweather supposedly wants a bigger share and Pacquiao wants a 50-50 deal.

Mayweather won’t make anywhere near the same kind of money that he’ll be making in the Pacquiao fight if he takes on someone else. A fight between Mayweather and Sergio Martinez or even Andre Berto would likely not bring anywhere close to the same kind of money that he can make in the Pacquiao fight. This is why it would seem like a self defeating move by Mayweather not to come to some sort of an agreement with Pacquiao at some point so that the fight can take place.

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