I said I wasn’t going to write about this fight anymore, since I don’t believe it is ever going to happen, but I was bombarded with Tweets and emails, so I will address these latest quotes from Mayweather.
Mayweather was asked if he thought a fight with the Filipino would go down. He didn’t sound optimistic, saying that any talk of a 50-50 revenue split with Manny is a non-starter. He said any talk of him being afraid to fight Pacman is nonsense, and offered one avenue to make the road to fruition easier to travel. “The only way I think a fight with the guy with three losses and I don’t know how many draws, the only way that fight happens is he has to leave Bob Arum,” he said. “And I’m not telling him to leave, because I know how the media is, they take your words and screw them up. They make it the way they want to make it.”
”Bob Arum likes to match Top Rank fighters with Top Rank fights. He keeps all the money in house,” Mayweather said.
”If I’m scared and I’m a coward, why do you guys want to see me fight?” he said. ”Do I want the Pacquiao fight? Absolutely. But it’s going to be hard to make the fight because Arum is worried about getting money.”
The fight should be 50/50.
I have it on good authority Mayweather was offered a guarantee of $50 million with a 55/45 split of PPV profits (55% to the winner). That should have gotten the fight done. That would have been close to a $70-75 million windfall for the winner and $60-65 to the loser. If that contract was presented to Mayweather, it was legit and he didn’t sign it, he didn’t want to fight Pacquiao.
This is under the premise that was the agreement, with boxing you never know (Mayweather doesn’t deny that was the offer), but that should have been enough for both sides and it would have been fair.
All the stuff he is saying about Arum is absolutely true, but doesn’t change the fact that asking for anything less than a 50/50 split or 55/45 to winner is unfair.
If I was Pacquiao I wouldn’t accept a lower flat fee while my opponent cashes in on the biggest boxing PPV of all time, that isn’t smart business.
So, no matter how Mayweather tries to clean it up, he didn’t want the fight and that makes him similar to Bob Arum (who also didn’t want the fight) the person who he dislikes the most because he is trying to hoard all the money.
Ironic.