World Boxing Organization (WBO) welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao turned 33 today and perhaps because of his increasing age Pacquiao came out and said he’s willing to take a smaller percentage than Floyd Mayweather Jr. to finally make this fight happen. This sounds promising, right? Mayweather has always wanted the bigger slice of the revenue and if Pacquiao is serious about giving him what he’s asking for then it should make the fight easier to put together. However, this is what Pacquiao is saying, but there is also Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum who needs to be convinced that a Pacquiao-Mayweather fight is worth putting together.
Arum says he’s working to put the fight together with help from outside investors but you have to wonder whether he really deep down wants to see his cash cow Pacquiao in with Mayweather. If he did, wouldn’t we have seen this fight happen a long time ago? The bout has been talked about for almost two years now and during that time Arum has matched Pacquiao up against a number of his own Top Rank fighters what you can in house fights.
Arum made a lot of money for his fighters Joshua Clottey, Miguel Cotto and Antonio Margarito, and we may be seeing Pacquiao matched back up with Cotto or two of Arum’s other Top Rank fighters WBO light welterweight champion Timothy Bradley and welterweight contender Mike Jones.
A fight against either one of them will raise their future stock in boxing without them having to do a whole lot. Just by fighting Pacquiao – and losing – they get instantly recognized. I just don’t think Arum is ready to have his gravy train fighter Pacquiao taken apart by Mayweather.
I think Arum is the one pulling the strings with Pacquiao, and it probably doesn’t matter that Pacquiao is saying he’ll accept less to fight Mayweather. If Arum doesn’t want this fight to happen, it won’t. There are still two fighters that Pacquiao still hasn’t whipped in Arum’s Top Rank stable, and he can also go back around the table and fight Cotto, Margarito and Clottey once more for in house fights.
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