WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao (56-5-2, 38 KOs) doesn’t want to talk about a potential mega-fight against WBA/WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr right now, because he doesn’t want to give the impression that he’s name dropping in order to increase pay-per-view sales for his fight this month against Chris Algieri (20-0, 8 KOs) at the Cotai Arena, Venetian Resort, Macao, Macao S.A.R., China.
Some boxing fans believe that the only reason why Pacquiao and his promoter Bob Arum have been talking about Mayweather in the run up to the Algieri fight is because the interest in the fight has been less than huge. The fight might ultimately bring in respectable PPV results, but few hardcore boxing fans are excited about it.
“I don’t want to bring up Floyd’s name because he might think I’m using him to market my fight against Algieri,” said Pacquiao to Philstar.com. “After the Algieri fight, then we can talk about Floyd or any other fighter. At the moment, my main and only focus is Algieri.”
It might not be really worth it to talk about a Mayweather fight even then, because it seems painfully obvious that Mayweather isn’t interested in fighting Pacquiao now that he’s extended his contract with Top Rank until the end of 2016. I think the chances of a Mayweather-Pacquiao fight went out the window when Pacquiao opted to extend his contract with Bob Arum of Top Rank rather than letting the contract expire at the end of 2014.
If Mayweather did change his mind about Pacquiao, it would still be extremely difficult to put a fight together between the two fighters because the money would likely be the sticking point rather than drug testing or some other issue. With Pacquiao having been beaten by Tim Bradley and Juan Manuel Marquez, and with his PPV numbers dropping, Mayweather might not want to give Pacquiao a respectable cut of the financial pie. We’re probably talking 70/30 if that for Pacquiao in a Mayweather fight. Would Pacquiao and Arum agree to that? I doubt it.
It’s very likely that Pacquiao will be facing the likes of Mikey Garcia, Jesse Vargas, Ruslan Provodnikov and Terence Crawford for the next two years. Pacquiao and his trainer Freddie Roach want WBA/WBC light welterweight champion Danny Garcia, but he’s with adviser Al Haymon, and that might make it difficult for a fight to be put together between the two fighters.