"This will be huge. So, yes, there was a business interest in getting this done," Moonves said. "But I also felt the importance of this fight for the boxing industry and for the sport. That kept me going. This was more than just a business deal to me.
"You'd have to be born on Mars not to know that the world wanted this fight. We have this deal with Floyd and it's in the back of everyone's mind: How do we make this deal happen?"
It wasn't easy, as past history has shown. Mayweather and Pacquiao were close to deals at various times, including the first time around in late 2009 and early 2010. Every deal point was agreed to except the method of drug testing, so the deal fell apart. Until 2013, both fighters were with HBO, albeit without exclusive contracts, but that did not help efforts to make the match.
In February 2013, Mayweather left HBO, his career-long network, and signed a six-fight, 30-month deal with CBS/Showtime. It was announced as the "richest individual athlete deal in all of sports," worth more than $200 million. Mayweather went about fighting other opponents, as did Pacquiao, and they looked like they might never get together. But their falling pay-per-view numbers and continued public demand for them to face each other kept the fight front and center, especially for Moonves, who still owed Mayweather two more fights that would pay him more than $30 million a pop. So last spring Moonves set his plan in motion to try to make the fight. He thought he could lure Pacquiao to Showtime, unaware that in May he signed a five-fight contract extension with Top Rank that included HBO exclusivity to his fights through the end of 2016.
This is where the waiter and trainer come in.
Moonves is a frequent diner at Craig's, a Los Angeles restaurant, where he has gotten to know the waiter who serves him regularly.
"He's always there. Nice guy, Gabriel Rueda," Moonves said. "One day he says, respectfully, 'I know you're a big boxing fan and I know you're involved with Showtime. My son trains with Freddie Roach. We've got to get this fight together. Freddie would love to get together with you.' I said, 'All right, let's set it up.'"
Roach, of course, is Pacquiao's Hall of Fame trainer and owner of the Wild Card Boxing Club in Hollywood, where Rueda's college-age son trained as an amateur boxer. Rueda told Roach that Moonves was interested in meeting with him. They met for a drink in late May, a few days after Memorial Day, at Scarpetta, an Italian restaurant in Beverly Hills.
"Freddie said, 'I want the fight to happen, Manny wants the fight to happen,'" Moonves said. "We had a good talk and I realized it wouldn't get done without Bob."
Roach said that Moonves was leery of Arum, whom he had known socially for many years -- even vacationed with -- but felt burned by him in a previous Pacquiao deal and hadn't spoken to him since. In 2011, Arum shook up the boxing industry when he took Pacquiao from HBO to Showtime for his PPV fight with Shane Mosley.
Roach said that Moonves told him he expected it to be the first of three Pacquiao fights, but after the Mosley fight Arum took Pacquiao back to HBO and there were hard feelings.
"Les wanted to meet with Manny because he thought his contract with Bob was over, and so he reached out to me through [Rueda]. The waiter told me Les wanted to get a hold of me," Roach said. "We had our first meeting at a fancy Italian restaurant in Beverly Hills. He said, 'Let's go sit at the bar.' He ordered a drink and I ordered a bottle of water and we talked about Manny's future and he wanted to know if I could get Manny in front of him.
"I told him you can't do that because Manny is with Top Rank. He thought the contract was over. He said Bob promised him two more fights [after the Mosley fight] and 'I'm not going to meet with that mother f-----.' He was mad at Bob for not giving him the fights he thought he owed him. I told Les, 'It would be really good to talk to Bob. You need to let everything go and talk to him.' He said, 'I'm not kissing his ass.' It wasn't going very well. I told Les, 'Let's make this happen. You can make this happen.'"
After the meeting, Roach said, he called Arum to fill him in.
"I called Bob up and said, 'I met with Les and he wanted to meet with Manny but I told him Manny re-signed with you," Roach said. "Bob said, 'F--- him.' Bob was mad at Les too. But I said to myself if I can just get these two together that's the best way for the fight to happen."
Arum lives in Las Vegas but also has a second home in Los Angeles, not far from Moonves' Beverly Hills home and, ultimately, Roach helped set up a pivotal 45-minute meeting that took place at Arum's home in June.
"When we got there they shook hands," Roach said. "They were going over ideas and they agreed that they could work it out between HBO and Showtime and that Les could deliver Mayweather and, of course, Bob could deliver Manny. The only thing I said to them is that they should get somebody neutral to negotiate the fight, like Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton. They told me to go f--- myself, but when we walked out they had their arms around each other and I said to myself, 'This fight's gonna get made.' They just needed to talk."
While Moonves and Arum stayed in touch -- with Moonves filling in those who needed to know at Showtime and Arum doing the same at HBO -- Mayweather and Pacquiao were both going to fight other opponents in the fall. Arum and Moonves agreed to reconvene after their bouts.
Mayweather (47-0, 26 KOs), 38, outpointed Marcos Maidana in their Sept. 13 rematch at the MGM Grand and Pacquiao (57-5-2, 38 KOs), 36, fought for the second time at the Venetian in Macau, China, knocking down Chris Algieri six times and winning a near-shutout decision on Nov. 22.
With both fighters winning and public and media demand for the fight still unrelenting, the next hurdle was to get Arum and Al Haymon, Mayweather's adviser, to negotiate terms of the bout -- not an easy task considering they despise each other.
Arum was Mayweather's promoter from the time he turned pro in 1996 until he left him in 2006, having done 35 of his first 36 fights. It was an acrimonious split with Arum feeling as though Haymon was responsible for coming between them. Haymon negotiated a clause in Mayweather's contract under which Mayweather could buy it out for $750,000, which he did, vowing to never work with Top Rank. For years, Mayweather and Arum have belittled each other in the media.
For most of the negotiation, Moonves dealt with Arum and Haymon individually, taking messages back and forth between them. In addition to having patched up his friendship with Arum, Moonves also has an excellent relationship Haymon, with whom Showtime has been doing most of its fights.
