Floyd Mayweather Jr.: “None of the Above”

Floyd Mayweather Jr.: “None of the Above”

On last night’s episode of ESPN’s sports talk show “Olbermann”, eight division world champion and boxing icon Manny Pacquiao gave the former political satirist an opportunity to probe the Filipino Congressman, concerning the future and past of his legendary fight career and his life as a politician.

The seven minute interview predictably ended with the always intriguing question regarding a mammoth and potentially historic fight with the pound for pound king of boxing, Floyd Mayweather Jr.

When asked if he would ever fight Money Mayweather, the Filipino Congressman had much to say.

“I want the fight, but it’s up to him (Floyd Mayweather),” admitted Manny Pacquiao. “Our line is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If he calls and says yes, the fight will be made.”

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Is Arum Holding Mayweather Jr. vs. Pacquiao Fight Back? Roach Disagrees

roach67Over the past few years, performance enhancing drugs and money have been claimed to be the leading causes of preventing the Mayweather Jr. vs. Pacquiapo showdown form taking place.

For some time Mayweather Jr. was confident that his gut feeling of Manny Pacquaio using PEDs was, well, not a just gut feeling at all. He blatantly claimed that there is no way that a fighter can go up in weight so fast, while experiencing no decline in speed or power. After some time, both fighters ended up across the phone line, trying to come to some sort of an agreement, which ended fruitlessly, with Pacquiao asking for more money than Floyd was willing to pay.

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Will Arum free Pacquiao so he can fight Mayweather?

arum3432Manny Pacquiao’s lawyer Franklin Gacal Jr. thinks Bob Arum of Top Rank should be a good one and free Manny Pacquiao up from the remainder of his contract with Top Rank so that Pacquiao can fight Floyd Mayweather Jr. in a history-making bout in 2014. Pacquiao is still under contract with Arum for the whole of 2014, and as long as he’s with him, Mayweather will not agree to fight Pacquiao.

Would Arum agree to let Pacquiao leave Top Rank for the good of Pacquiao? There’s no question that a Mayweather fight would be a big boost for Pacquiao’s career right now. He’s lost 2 out of his last 3 fights, his last fight against Arum’s fighter Brandon Rios was disappointment in bringing in only 475,000 pay-perv-view buys. Arum says fans weren’t interested because the fight took place in Macao, China instead of the United States. Getting beaten in back to back fights probably didn’t help Manny any.

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Arum: Pacquiao may renew contract [with Top Rank] past 2015

pac8787If you were one of the fans who were hoping that Manny Pacquiao would leave Top Rank when his contract expires with them at the end of 2014, you might not be happy to read the news from Top Rank promoter Bob Arum, who is saying that Pacquiao may re-sign with Top Rank to stay with them beyond 2015. This could mean a 2-year contract or possibly even longer.

“I just had a good meeting with Michael [Koncz] yesterday, and I’ll leave it at that,” said Arum via RingTV. “I have a contract with Manny, and he’s saying that we may very well renew the contract past 2015.”

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Mikey Garcia a future opponent for Pacquiao, says Arum

garcia564 (2)While WBO super featherweight champion Mikey Garcia (33-0, 28 KO’s) still hasn’t even proven that he’s the best fighter in the 130 lb. division, that’s not keeping his promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank planning on matching the skinny Mikey up against his cash cow fighter Manny Pacquiao in the near future. Arum hasn’t given a date for when he wants to match the 26-year-old Mikey with Pacquiao, but don’t be surprised if it happens really soon if Pacquiao decides to leave Top Rank. His contract is up with the company this year, and anything is possible if this is his final year with them.

“I wouldn’t be surprised as he [Mikey Garcia] gets older to move up to 140 and possibly fight Manny Pacquiao,” Arum said.

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Bradley and Provodnikov still front runners for Pacquiao’s April fight, says Arum

bradley777Manny Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum hasn’t changed his mind about his desire to have Pacquiao fight either Tim Bradley or Ruslan Provodnikov in his next fight on April 12th. The only change that Arum has made is he’s stopped mentioning 40-year-old Juan Manuel Marquez as one of three candidates for the fight because of Marquez repeatedly saying that he doesn’t have any interest in ever facing Pacquiao again after having fought him 4 times.

“The two guys that are the front runners are Tim Bradley and Ruslan Provodnikov,” Arum said.

Arum’s not concerned about Pacquiao drawing low numbers in facing these guys, because he sees the disappointing numbers from Pacquiao’s last fight against Brandon Rios being because the fight took place in Macao, China and not in the U.S.

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Arum: Broner’s not who people thought he was

broner660Bob Arum of Top Rank thinks Adrien Broner (27-1, 22 KO’s) isn’t the guy that many people in the boxing world thought he was before his recent loss to Marcos Maidana. Arum wasn’t surprised in the least by Broner’s loss because he had noted then kinds of opposition that he’d been fighting up until the Maidana fight, and he felt that he hadn’t shown that he was anywhere near being a great fighter. Arum saw a lot of other fighters who he felt were better than Broner.

“I think we wasn’t what they portrayed him to be,” Arum said to Hustleboss. “He has to fight like a guy who is a normal fighter. He’s not a great fighter. He’s a good fighter. There are many fighters who are much better than he is.”

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Arum willing to match Donaire against Mares on HBO

donaire773Top Rank promoter Bob Arum is saying that he’d be willing to match his fighter WBO super bantamweight champion Nonito Donaire (31-1, 20 KO’s) against the unbeaten Abner Mares (25-0-1, 13 KO’s) in the future, but only if the 27-year-old Mares was willing to face the 30-year-old Donaire on HBO rather than Showtime where Mares typically fights.

Arum said to Ringside SEN Radio in Melbourne that if Mares is “Willing to come over and fight Donaire on HBO that’s fine. [Mares] doesn’t enjoy 25 percent of the popularity Donaire enjoys but if he wants to fight Nonito and get a real good pay we’ll be happy to fight Mares.”

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Arum confident he can get Pacquiao-Marquez 5 fight made for September

pac6Despite Juan Manuel Marquez’s apparent reluctance to fight Manny Pacquiao for a fifth time, Top Rank promoter Bob Arum remains extremely confident that he’s going to get the fight made for September in Singapore or Macao, two places where the fighters can escape the taxes from the pay per view money that they get from U.S boxing fans. Arum is looking for the perfect hotel-casino in Macau or Singapore to stage the fight.

The rematch would likely be promoted as their previous fights with the fighters traveling to three or four major cities in the U.S to hold press conferences, and then the fight would take place outside of the U.S on fight night.

You can make a strong argument that Arum isn’t exactly doing Pacquiao any favors by putting him back in the ring with a guy like Marquez after the way that Pacquiao was knocked out by Marquez last December. Marquez knocked Pacquiao out cold with a nice right hand in the 6th round of that fight.

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Arum says no to Bradley-Provodnikov rematch

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By Bill Phanco: If you were one of the many boxing fans interested in seeing a rematch between WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley (30-0, 12 KO’s) and Ruslan Provodnikov (22-2, 15 KO’s) in order to clear up the confusion about their fight last Saturday night, you can forget it because it’s not happening.

Bradley’s promoter Bob Arum has ruled out a rematch between the two at least for the time being. Arum does leave open the possibility of matching them up again one of these days in the future, but not until they’ve faced other guys. Arum wants to move Bradley forward and match him three potential opponents: Manny Pacquiao, Juan Manuel Marquez or the winner of the Brandon Rios vs. Mike Alvarado fight.

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