Bob Arum, now more so than ever, comes off as the reason Mayweather and Pacquiao couldn’t reach an agreement to fight. Arum want’s people to know that he’s wanted this fight to happen as much as anyone.
“If anybody blames me for wanting to stop the fight, they must be absolutely crazy. Nobody has worked harder than I have to make the fight. Anybody who is involved will tell you that,” said Arum, who added Top Rank will be a co-promoter of the fight with Mayweather Promotions and MP Promotions.
Manny and Floyd met after the Heat game the other night and seemed to have hashed out the small details necessary to make the fight. Arum himself thinks that the fight is all but final.
“According to everybody, it seems we are moving towards a fight. But, you never know.”
“I cannot assure you that it’s gonna happen, but certainly with this development in Miami and from what I know about the finalization of papers and everything, I have to be optimistic. And I know that everybody that I deal with like Les Moonves of CBS and HBO’s Richard Plepler are all very positive of making this happen. There are no issues that I can see that mean anything.”
“I think everything is positive and hopefully, if everything keeps going well, we’ll get it wrapped up by the end of the week,” Arum said. “Do I know for sure? No. But I’m an optimist.”
Arum seems to be out of the loop in terms of negotiations, but maybe that is for the best. As long as he signs off on the final paperwork then this fight should happen on May 2nd.