Mayweather on ropes
Pacquiao calls bluff as fans await clash
By Ron Borges / Boxing Notes
It is not easy to nail Floyd Mayweather Jr. flush, but this week Manny Pacquiao did it.
While in the midst of a nationwide tour to publicize his Dec. 8 fourth fight with Juan Manuel Marquez, Pacquiao couldn’t escape the only topic of importance to most fight fans, which is a career-defining match with Mayweather. Although that fight has been rotting on the vine for more than two years, Pacquiao finally found the kind of opening that could decide the day when he first told a radio interviewer and then repeated during several ESPN appearances that he would not only agree to whatever kind of random drug tests Mayweather wants, but also to a purse split that would give Mayweather 55 percent of what is expected to be the largest grossing fight in boxing history.
Money and Mayweather’s insistence that all his opponents agree to random blood testing for performance-enhancing drugs right up to the night of any fight with him had long been stumbling blocks to making the sport’s most anticipated event, but Pacquiao finally blew them out of the water this week, leaving the still silent Mayweather on the ropes in a debate he had, up until then, been winning.
“I’m waiting for that fight to happen,” Pacquiao said during one ESPN interview. “I don’t know what’s the reason why that fight has not happened. . . . It’s OK for me if he gets a higher percentage than me. I told him I agree with 55 and 45 (split).”
According to Pacquiao, Mayweather offered him a flat $40 million with no share of the pay-per-view upside, a condition Mayweather well understood no one would accept for a fight that could easily do 2 million buys or more at $59.95 or more on PPV, a gross of $120 million and likely far higher. That’s before site fees, international TV, the gate and sponsorships are added to the pot.
Obviously 45 percent of that, assuming the fight does as predicted, would be considerably more than the $40 flat fee Mayweather offered during an ear-to-ear phone faceoff with Pacquiao. But Pacquiao’s public concession of the lion’s share of the fight’s income to Mayweather takes off the table one of the negotiation’s sticking points.
Pacquiao then became the first fighter in years to land a combination on Mayweather when he backed that up by saying he would also agree to random testing, even up to the night of the fight. Pacquiao had at first refused that, then said he would agree to whatever the Nevada State Athletic Commission ordered (knowing he had no other choice if the fight was in Las Vegas and that NSAC standards are well below what Mayweather has insisted upon). Last week Pacquiao went further, saying he would now do whatever Mayweather asked in that area to make the fight happen.
“No problem,” Pacquiao said. “Whatever he wants to do. No problem.”
That is the first time anyone has actually heard Pacquiao say publicly he would agree to random blood testing up to the night of the fight and it accomplished two things. It took the legs out of Mayweather’s insistence Pacquiao had not agree to such a request, and it left him and his advisors reeling because if Pacquiao later refuses, it would confirm to many Mayweather’s fears that the eight-time champion’s success has been somehow chemically fueled, so it’s unlikely he would try to backpedal later.
Backpedaling is not Pacquiao’s style, which may be the real reason behind Mayweather’s continued dodging of the fight. Since serving his jail sentence for domestic battery, Mayweather has been keeping a low profile, at least in terms of boxing. No one expects him to fight before next spring, and with a Dec. 8 fight against Marquez which figures to be difficult, it’s equally unlikely Pacquiao would return again before May or June.
If Mayweather accepts another opponent in April you see the problem — nearly another year runs out without them squaring off and more and more sports fans look askance at the entire thing.
There is a time for a deal — and a fight — to be made. If that time drags on too long the deal itself begins to rot and fan interest wanes, which is already becoming the case. Although TV networks would battle over the fight, even they agree that as the two fighters continue to age, interest in it decreases because fights are not like wine. They do not always improve by aging.
Chin music
Amir Khan has apparently decided five-time Trainer of the Year Freddie Roach should have ordered him a chin transplant prior to getting knocked cold by Danny Garcia in his last outing in July, because he fired Roach last week, claiming Roach was too focused on other fighters.
Although publicly both have been nothing but professional about the split, word on the street is Khan wanted Roach to dump Pacquiao and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. and make him his focus. Khan had tired of traveling the world to work with Roach in Pacquiao training camps.
“He has a right to expect his trainer is focused on him,” a business associate of Khan’s insisted.
Not if you understand business he doesn’t. Both Pacquiao and Chavez were bigger draws and paid Roach better. Roach resurrected Khan, who was a broken fighter after Breidis Prescott knocked him cold.
Roach has long privately acknowledged Khan’s chin challenges, once telling a friend, “How do we train a chin? We don’t we train the fighter not to get hit on the chin.” When asked what might happen on the night that strategy didn’t work he smiled and said, “Go to the smelling salts.”
In other words, there is only so much a trainer can do. Roach helped Khan become a two-time world champion, but he is now on a two-fight losing streak.
Many saw that loss as “stunning,” but if you knew anything about Khan’s chin it was not. That loss had nothing to do with the location of training camp and everything to do with the location of Garcia’s punches on Khan’s chin.
“I’ve been fired before,” Roach said after he and Khan spoke by phone before the Chavez-Sergio Martinez weigh-in. “No problem. He told me, ‘I know you’re busy with your other fighters and I’m going to go in a different direction.’ No hard feelings. I wish him luck.”
Khan is reportedly leaning toward Virgil Hunter, lifelong trainer of Andre Ward, but he has also spoken to other potential replacements, including Pedro Diaz, who handles Miguel Cotto. Maybe one of them is also a chin surgeon? If not, they can’t fix the problem either and, by the way, does Khan think Hunter will put him before Ward or that Diaz will do that to Cotto?
Maybe it isn’t only his chin that’s his problem.
