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Pacquiao vs. Mayweather unlikely to happen; both camps moving on
By Zach Arnold | July 17, 2010
With no Mayweather-Pacquiao in 2010, it’s time to stop picking sides
The natural inclination here is for those who believe in the UFC business model to praise it because, hey, after all they are able to produce the match-ups that people want to see and boxing’s biggest available match keeps getting postponed.
I will give Floyd Mayweather credit for one thing this year, which is that he more than any other athlete has advanced the anti-doping discussion on the table in the fight game.
Jake Donovan at Boxing Scene has a report about Bob Arum’s conference call at Midnight with the media. The long and the short of it is that we will either see Pacquiao vs. Miguel Cotto or Pacquiao vs. Antonio Margarito in Mexico or Abu Dhabi. Arum’s heart has been set on doing a big show in Abu Dhabi for over a year now. Mexico would make the most sense if it’s Margarito, since he’s having trouble getting licensed in the States.
As for whom Mayweather will fight next, he may not fight and just wait things out…
Topics: Boxing, Media, Zach Arnold | 12 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
I think we all knew it wasn’t going to happen. Mayweather isn’t so dumb as to jeopardize his entire legacy for 1 payday.
But giving up on it is a stupid idea for both parties and boxing in general. Money vs Pacman is the ONLY fight in boxing anyone really wants to see. Stringing it along with maybes keeps a little attention on them. Now theres no reason to bother.
1 more death knell for boxing as a major combat sport.
“Mayweather isn’t so dumb as to jeopardize his entire legacy for 1 payday.”
Wouldn’t his legacy then be that he never fought the guy who everyone believes had a chance to beat him?
Or do boxing fans even care about secondary details like that?
You’re not the best ever when you won’t even fight the best fighters in your “class” (so to speak). Go find another aging, washed up, has been to out class “Money”, because it’s all you’re willing to do apparently.
I am hearing rumors of Mayweather against Marco Antonio Barrera, the fight the world wants to see 😛
The fight will happen. There’s too much money there for it to pass up.
And on a side note, there’s still match ups the Zuffa system can’t put together: namely teammates fighting teammates (ie Koscheck-Fitch) and also Dana has been unable to get Forrest Griffin and Rampage to agree to fight Machida for another example. If both Floyd and Manny were in the UFC, he still couldn’t get them to agree to fight. It would be the same deal.
The difference is, if the UFC really wanted to push the issue. They’d fight.
If somebody doesn’t want to fight then you can’t make them. There is nothing in UFC contracts mandating you accept every fight offered to you, nor would any fighter agree to that term if they did have it in there. The only way to force their hand is to starve them out by giving them no fight until they accept whomever they are turning down and they will never do that to a star fighter and the non-stars are smart enough to know they have no leverage so wouldn’t dare do it.
I think the biggest difference isn’t the “Dana as Iron Fisted Don” myth, I think the biggest difference is boxers can afford to take much more time off with their larger purses than MMA fighters. Even UFC’s biggest stars make a fraction of what boxing stars get paid, so there’s a much bigger difference with Floyd Mayweather Jr. being able to take 2 years off if he wanted compared to how fast Rampage caved in and came back to UFC out of financial necessity.
I do not know that much about boxing, but it seems to me that Mayweather v Pacquiao is 100x larger of a fight than Koscheck vs Fitch.
Am I wrong in thinking this?
Star-wise, of course. As Jon Fitch couldn’t draw flies if he fell into a pile of poo. But that fight really should have happened before Koscheck was granted a WW title shot since Fitch was certainly closer to being #1 contender than Daley ever was.
But that’s not the point, the point is the fight was repeatedly pitched by UFC, both guys gave them the “teammates don’t fight” runaround even though it was pretty important to the division and the “Dana can make any fight he wants happen” belief didn’t happen just like Jardine-Evans didn’t happen in 2007 for the same reasons even though Dana ranted in press conferences about not allowing teammates to duck each other.
But my point is that UFC could have a situation like Mayweather-Pacquiao if the fighters decided to turn it into that and there’s nothing UFC could do despite the myth that they can. But financially the MMA fighters can’t afford to, and that’s the real difference. So instead of the “put everybody under one umbrella with one promoter who rules like a dictator” belief, just pay everybody less.
These guys (PBF in particular) have reached Fedor-status for me. By that I mean, I really don’t care how great they are or how great I think they are – I’m sick of all the sh*t going on outside of the ring/cage with these guys.
I won’t get hopes up for any potential fights and I won’t be surprised when they take fights against guys that aren’t the guys they should be fighting.
It’s all about being greedy and making insane demands that either get them a “godfather deal” or that no one will take, so they walk away and say it wasn’t worth it to them. Just pissing away legacies and the chance to prove that you are what you say you are…the best.
This is the same group I lump Barnett into when he alludes to Zuffa having to make him an big offer, despite being an unproven draw among the general American audience.
Pacman v Cotto or Margarito is a joke!!! Typical Arum. Margarito shouldnt even be boxing and cotto has showed nothing to suggest he can do better 2nd time around.