Source: Nick Giongco, mb.com.ph
-- The camps of Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather have until today to come to an agreement or else the March 13, 2010 megabuck match between boxing’s premier pugilists will go down the drain, their respective teams claim.
Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum insisted he will not change his stand about the drug-testing procedure that he thinks is more than enough to determine wrong-doing, while Mayweather’s camp also echoed the same sentiment, saying that while they have agreed to tap another agency to do the testing, some of the tests will still have to be random.
Mayweather adviser Leonard Ellerbe told the Grand Rapids Press that the fighter is still demanding Olympic-style testing, stressing that in the event the fight is scuttled it won’t be because Mayweather chose not to fight Pacquiao but the Filipino’s “unwillingness to take random blood and urine tests – and I don‘t understand why.”
“The whole idea of doing scheduled blood and urine testing is absurd,” said Ellerbe, junking a proposal by Pacquiao’s camp that tests be done during the kickoff press conference scheduled during the first week of January, 30 days before the fight and immediately after the fight.
As this developed, Pacquiao lawyer Franklin Gacal said Pacquiao is open to the proposal of facing somebody else other than Mayweather on the same date.
“Manny knows that it’s going to be huge if he fights Mayweather but he knows as well that he has to fight for what he believes is right,” said Gacal.
Gacal said Pacquiao is aware that he is settling for crumbs in the event a proposed fight with Paulie Malignaggi is made for March 13, 2010.
“Yes, he knows about that but that’s how it is,” said Gacal.
Pacquiao and Mayweather are guaranteed $25 million each and they both stand to get as much as $40 million once everything – pay-per-view revenue, gate receipts and closed-circuit viewing – are counted.
Arum, who should be on his way back to Las Vegas from a Christmas vacation in Cabo San Lucas in Mexico, said he will immediately hook up with Malignaggi’s people once the Monday deadline lapses.
Despite all the threats and bluffs, logic dictates that the two feuding camps are going to find a solution to the problem.
But if they remain stubborn, boxing in general and they themselves, are going to miss out on a lucrative payday.
Monday, December 28, 2009
0 comments