They are still playing games.
This is the quote from an ‘unnamed’ source, who could be anyone in Pacquiao’s camp, including Pacquiao promoter Bob Arum from Top Rank, Pacquiao adviser Michael Koncz, Pacquiao trainer Freddie Roach or the Pacman himself through someone he choose to do his talking.
It’s been used in the past day for stories by over a dozen media publications:
“Manny has 100 percent signed his side of the deal,” an ‘unnamed source close to Pacquiao’ is widely being quoted. “It’s now over to Mayweather to close the deal and announce the fight.”
It’s very nearly identical to quotes that have been thrown out there by the Pacquiao camp throughout bargaining to come up with a contract. In January he said he’d sign to fight and was “waiting for the answer from them” and that “the fans deserve the fight.”
All of this has lead to the usual shots being taken at Mayweather during the course of this, most notably that critics have said that Mayweather is more interested in protecting his unbeaten record than taking on the guy that everyone figures can take him down. Pacquiao himself has suggested that.
Wrong. I’ve said all along in this space that Mayweather will sign. And I’ve said that a boxer saying he has signed but that the other side hasn’t is just hyperbole. Obviously for both to sign it has to be a contract each side believes to be fair, one that takes care of all the nuances relating to split, time, place drug-testing, broadcasting and many other factors.
Signing a contract not agreed to by the other side is a worthless exercise.
Given Pacquiao said he signed a contract last month, and given that Arum, Showtime exec. Stephen Espinoza, Mayweather, even Pacquiao, and others, have noted that negotiations have been ongoing this entire time, then what did he sign back then? Obviously it was just talk to make himself look good, Mayweather bad.
The deal will get done, may already be. It will be announced by Mayweather, Arum said over a week ago that Mayweather would be the one to tell the public, possibly even later this day at the NBA all-star game, which starts at 8 p.m. E.T.. All along it was just a question of getting to the right deal.
With these two boxers, and somewhere around $320 million in take, it really will be a superfight and, until another one eclipses it in the decades to come, the fight of the century. And all along I’ve said that Pacquiao can talk all he wants and that Mayweather, who has played it close to the vest, will do his talking in the ring.
