SWIFT BOATING
By Steve Kim, MaxBoxing (June 6, 2012) Doghouse Boxing
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Now that it’s Manny Pacquiao fight week, it's this faction’s turn to explain to the public why it bears no fault that a fight with Floyd Mayweather is still yet to be consummated. Last week, Kevin Iole penned this story on Yahoo! Sports on how a 50/50 financial split was agreed upon long ago by the two parties: yahoo.com/nmayweather-pacquiao-nearly-agreed.
 
Bob Arum told Maxboxing, “See, he's now stuck. [Mayweather]'s saying, ‘That was then; this is now.’ Well, before the end of 2009 going into 2010, he had appreciably better numbers than Pacquiao because the Mayweather-[Oscar] De la Hoya fight did double [the average] before. Since then, Pacquiao's numbers have been better. I know what the [Victor] Ortiz number was. We've done better; we've done more pay-per-view buys from the beginning of 2010 to 2011 and we haven't had the 2012 fight yet. We've done more pay-per-views then they have; we've done bigger gates, sold more tickets. But the point is, all of that is irrelevant because like Joe Frazier said, when people said to him, ‘How can you ask for the same amount of money [Muhammad] Ali is asking for because Ali is more popular?’ He said, ‘Let me ask you one thing. People want to see Frazier and Ali fight, right?’ [A] reporter said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘Without Frazier, there ain't no fight.’”
 
Eventually, they went on to split the money down the middle and engaged in the “Fight of the Century” on March 8th, 1971.
 
“When it's so close and so forth, this isn't like a Pacquiao and Bradley or Mayweather and even a Cotto. It's not like that,” explained Arum. “Those aren't parity fights. This is a parity fight. The only reason why he has now brought this up after two years of everybody accepting it as 50/50 is because there are no more issues. He relied on the testing issue- and it's not true- we've said, ‘OK, we'll do the testing but cut it off at two weeks before,’ and Al Haymon agreed. [Golden Boy CEO] Richard Schaefer agreed; everybody agreed but Mayweather wouldn't do it.”
 
Perhaps Arum is saying this now as he braces for an event which has the very good possibility of not doing the usual numbers associated with a Pacquiao pay-per-view event. Regardless, you get the sense that unless it's 50/50, you will not see Pacquiao and Mayweather in the ring together anytime soon.
 
And speaking of the testing issue, just which organization would be used in the event a fight between the two titans is agreed upon?
 
“This would be the only issue on testing procedures; it doesn't matter if it's VADA or USADA, the testing,” said Arum. “But we would insist that whoever did the testing, it would be under the supervision of the Nevada Athletic Commission so that all reports or all excuses were made to the commission and so forth. Because otherwise, it's just cowboys and Indians, people without any legal authority.”
 
(And that's the last and only time Pacquiao-Mayweather will be discussed under this byline this week.)


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