Billy’s Boxing Blog

By William Trillo

The press release went out early this past Friday telling the media that Bob Arum would hold a midnight teleconference to let everyone know what would happen with the Manny Pacquiao vs. Floyd Mayweather negotiations and what was next if Floyd did not respond by that Friday’s deadline.

Just after midnight Arum got on the phone and stated, “…this Friday was the deadline of the end of the exclusivity period and I tell you that next week I’ll be talking to the Cotto and the Margarito camps regarding a fight with Manny Pacquiao”.

Basically what Arum was saying is that he needed to move on with negotiations for his “Bread & Butter” fighter Manny Pacquiao and he wanted to get a signed contract with Cotto or Margarito done quickly as preparation for the November 13th date needed to start right away.

But then Arum made a statement that left the door wide open for Mayweather, “ In the interim, while this was going on (negotiations with Cotto or Margarito), if Floyd suddenly emerged and said he wanted to do the fight, there would be nothing opposed to getting together and doing the fight.”

With that statement Arum put Mayweather and his Team exactly where they want to be, and that’s clearly in the driver seat in any negotiations with Pacquiao from this point on. It gives Floyd the mental edge he needs and always seems to get and as much as many of us hate to admit it, by leaving that door open Arum put an exclamation point on the Floyd Jr. quote, “All roads lead to Floyd Mayweather!”

Following up on some statements he made earlier in the month Arum again suggested that maybe Floyd didn’t want to fight this year because of the legal problems of his trainer/Uncle Roger.

For the life of me I can’t figure why Arum would start making excuses for Mayweather, and just like Arum said of Mayweathers silence,  “Who knows the reason for it? It is unfathomable…I just can’t figure it out.  But there are a lot of things I can’t figure out!”

I can’t figure out either.

I am sure that’s the same thing media members who were on the call said as they crawled back into bed.

I can’t help be see the following scenario playing out:

Arum will be about 24 hours from finalizing a fight with either of his alternate stars against Pacquiao when he receives a call saying Floyd has changed his mind and he wants the November 13th fight. Upon hearing the good news Arum informs his fighters their deal is off because Floyd is back at the table. Then all of sudden, hours turn into days, days turn into a week and still there is no other word from Team Mayweather. When they finally do surface they inform Arum that they are glad Manny agreed to the drug testing demands but now Floyd wants a much larger portion of the purse and unless Manny gives in there will be no fight. A fuming Arum blows up when he hears the new demand and the Super Fight again explodes in everyone’s face.

If you think that scenario is far fetched just go ahead and reflect back to December of 2009 when all sides reported that the Mayweather vs. Pacquiao fight was all but a done deal. Within days that fight fell apart because of Mayweathers drug testing demands and they have never been close again.

Reading reports of Mayweather casually playing basketball in Miami this weekend may tell you that Mayweather didn’t care one way or the other about Arum’s midnight call but trust me, Floyd and his advisor Leonard Ellerbe were closely monitoring the situation and they couldn’t be happier now that Arum has exposed his hand.

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This entry was posted on Monday, July 19th, 2010 at 4:28 am and is filed under Boxing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.