WHY "MONEY" IS AVOIDING MANNY

WHY "MONEY" IS AVOIDING MANNY

By Rene Bonsubre, Jr.
PhilBoxing.com
Tue, 24 Nov 2009



Negotiations for the Manny Pacquiao-Floyd Mayweather Jr. will soon begin. So the reports say.

Would this mean that Mayweather Jr. would be starting to play hard to get for some reasons from asking the bigger piece of the prize cake for silly reason that he still is the finest pound-for-pound fighter in the world to simply Pacquiao is to easy for picking and that fighting the Filipino is not worth the effort.

Or that he’s simply too afraid to face Pacquiao in a fight that, for all intent and purposes, would lead to his eventual downfall.

For whatever reasons, Mayweather and his team could be in for a big surprise.
For one, if chief trainer Freddie Roach’s reasoning will follows, Team Pacquiao won’t be pursuing him as to mean that Pacquiao, already in boxing history to first man ever to win seven world championships in seven weight divisions, would compromise that status.

Sometime before Pacquiao and his entourage left Manila where he had his first five weeks of training, Roach was quoted by media men that the reigning best pound-for-pound king doesn’t need Mayweather and, on the contrary, it is Mayweather who needs Pacquiao.

So that for what is expected richest fight in the history of the sport to proceed, it must be the American’s camp which should do everything to make it happen.
To Roach’s mind, it is Pacquiao who made legendary Oscar De La Hoya retire on his stool. It is Pacquiao who left Ricky Hatton unconscious in Las Vegas, it is Pacquiao who is willing to trade punches with quality fighters over and over, including the deposed World Boxing Organization champ Miguel Cotto, whom the Filipino reduced to pulp via a 12th round technical knockout only last week that cost the Puerto Rican his 147-pound crown.

This, plus the now fact that the Pacquiao-Cotto pulled in bigger pay-per-view numbers than Mayweather-Marquez held only a few months ago more is more than reason for Pacquiao to be the one to play hard to get.

Pacquiao has, at every turn, overshadowed the boastful Mayweather from atop the ring or elsewhere to the effect Mayweather Jr.’s ego has been bruised beyond recognition.
Pacquiao has been featured in Time Magazine and The New York Times recently, and he was also a guest on Late Night with Jimmy Kimmel. He is the undisputed icon in his country. Even in the United States, the Pacman fever has been all over further sending Mayweather bitter. Mayweather can continue avoiding Pacquiao, who cares to the risk of having fighting opponents of his size in the mold of Mosley. Cottley or even Cotto and suffer a loss that that would taint his immaculate unbeaten record.

Roach knows that when that happens, it will be Mayweather himself who will seek a fight with Pacquiao, who, by that time, would have fought one or two more bouts that would make him richer by, say, 50 to 60 million dollars, the same amount Mayweather would have earned had he met the Filipino at this stage of their respective career.