Pound for pound king Manny Pacquiao and promoter Bob Arum have called Floyd Mayweather’s bluff by agreeing to face him in May as long as ‘Money’ Mayweather can get his purse guaranteed. Earlier this week Mayweather Jr ‘dared’ Pacquiao to face him in the ring on May 5, even going so far as calling him a ‘Punk’ on social network site Twitter.
Many obstacles have been put in the way over the last year including the now legendry blood testing request by Mayweather. But at a press conference in the Philippines on Thursday Pacquiao and Arum put the ball firmly back in the court of Team Mayweather.
"I want to fight him(Mayweather). This is the fight the world wants," insisted Pacquiao. "Mayweather wants a guaranteed purse so what he has to do is get a promoter who can give him the guarantee. I don’t have problems getting a guarantee because I have a promoter who will give me my guaranteed purse.
"If he gets a guarantee, then we are going to share the revenue on a 50-50 basis," Pacquiao added,
Arum chipped in by saying: "There is no problem on our part—the problem is on Mayweather’s.
"Mayweather needs somebody on his side that’s going to guarantee his purse. Mayweather has nobody on his side and GBP (Golden Boy Promotions) is not going to guarantee his purse."
The one stumbling block now is Mayweather has already secured the MGM Grand for May 5 but Arum and Pacquiao want to fight around two weeks later and for Arum to guarantee Pacquiao’s purse he would need to raise 10’s of millions of dollars more by erecting a temporary arena in Las Vegas to accommodate twice as many spectators.
A bit of give and take on both sides could make the biggest fight of the decade happen but the reality is, since when has give and take become part of the vocabulary when it comes negotiating Mayweather Jr vs Pacquiao.
January 12, 2012
