Many believe that Floyd Mayweather is the pound-for-pound best fighter in boxing, but he needs to defeat Manny Pacquiao to erase all doubt.
By Jason Lewis
Sentinel Sports Editor
The Floyd Mayweather/Manny Pacquiao saga does not appear to have any end in sight.
Top Rank’s Bob Arum, Pacquiao’s promoter, has said that there has been ongoing negotiations for what could be the most lucrative fight in sports history, and he went as far as to set a deadline for Mayweather to take the first.
That deadline passed late last week, and Arum said that Mayweather has lost exclusive rights to negotiate with Pacquiao for a November 13 fight. Arum said that he felt that Mayweather did not accept the fight because of the uncertainty of his uncle and trainer, Roger Mayweather.
Roger Mayweather will be going on trial after being accused of assaulting a female boxer. Arum felt that Floyd Mayweather would not want to take the Pacquiao fight if his uncle was not able to train him. Arum did not rule out a potential fight between Mayweather and Pacquiao in November, or early next year.
But Leonard Ellerbe, one of Mayweather’s closest advisers, denied that there were any negotiations with Pacquiao or Arum.
Arum claims that he has been negotiating with Al Haymon, Mayweather’s top advisor, through HBO Sports President Ross Greenburg. Arum claims that he and Haymon were passing messages to each other through Greenburg.
“Here are the facts,” Ellerbe said in a statement. “Al Haymon, (Golden Boy Promotions CEO) Richard Schaefer and myself speak to each other on a regular basis, and the truth is no negotiations have ever taken place, nor was there ever a deal agreed upon by Team Mayweather or Floyd Mayweather to fight Manny Pacquiao on November 13. Either Ross Greenburg or Bob Arum is not telling the truth, but history tells us who is lying.”
Ellerbe lying reference was towards Arum, who has been known to stretch the truth.
Greenburg does not have a comment about the situation. At this point it is hard to tell who is telling the truth, and if this fight will ever get off the ground.
Negotiations broke off earlier this year because Mayweather demanded Olympic style drug testing, which included blood testing, while Pacquiao refused to submit blood within a month of the fight. Pacquiao claimed that giving blood within two days of the fight would weaken him. But the Mayweather/Shane Mosley fight proved that given a very small sample of blood within days of the fight is not an issue. Also, Olympic athletes have to submit to numerous blood testing, even during the Olympic games, and they do not have a problem with fatigue.
Arum claimed that the testing that boxing has in place now, which is urine testing, will detect any performance enhancing drugs (PEDs). But that is not true. Human Growth Hormones (HGH) cannot be detected by a urine test. It can only be tested by a blood test.
It appears that somebody, if not multiple people, is using the media to do some type of spin job. What ever that spin job is, it is not leading the public to the mega fight that they want to see.
