Stay at home Floyd Mayweather, what's next for Manny Pacquiao and Miguel Cotto
LAS VEGAS—As Bob Arum, alternating between mock anger and feigned outrage wants to have Sugar Shane Mosley fitted for a dunce cap, I decided it is high time, just a couple of hours before Miguel Cotto and Manny Pacquiao hit the official scales, to take a broader view.
“What a moron!” Arum said to me about Mosley’s entering into a contract for a Jan. 30 fairly meaningless HBO bout against Andre Berto.
“You mean Shane is not smart enough to wait two days to see how Manny and Miguel turns out. Shane is a nice kid but this is an incredibly dumb decision. Who cares about Berto, he is a zero who meaning below zero at the gate and on TV?
“I was seriously looking at Mosley as Pacquiao’s next opponent but he took himself out of the running. How is fighting Berto a good decision for Mosley at this point? It’s just dumb, dumb, dumb!
Uncle Bob Arum says Shane Mosley wears dunce cap for taking Berto bout (AP Photo)
“If Mosley shows up here at the press room today and starts talking crap about Pacman or Cotto, I will pick him up and throw him the nearest window!”
It’s appropriate now, with all the prefight blather behind us, to scan the post fight scene and to explore what will happen next for the principals…
This just in: Shy guy Floyd Mayweather Jr. will absolutely, positively, NOT grace the MGM Grand Garden Arena Saturday to scout a potential next opponent.
Mayweather sidekick Leonard Ellbere told me milliseconds ago by phone that he and Money May have no plans to leave the Big Boy Mansion across town. Since they won’t be on the scene, it sounds like it will popcorn and Pepsi all around in front of Floyd’s big screen TV, thus adding one more PPV TV buy to what former Mayweather promoter and now declared enemy Bob Arum said very well might be a record breaking figure.
“We may outdo the Mayweather-de la Hoya fight and that figure was 2.3 million PPV buys in the United States,” Arum said in his usual, gloating and snarky manner late Thursday night.
Examine this, boxing aficionados as White Gorilla Michael Marley, DSource Guillermo and Chris Robinson chop it up
In boxing, big money exudes a sort of perfume and makes the most hardened cynics embrace each other at least temporarily.
So on Thursday I was an eyewitness as HBO chieftain Ross Greenburg walked and chatted with Uncle Bob. They’ve been at each other’s throats the past couple of years mainly because of criticism of HBO (mainly charges that HBO favors Oscar’s Golden Boy above all others) but they could have been mistaken for a father and son having an amiable discussion here.
“It’s a rapprochement,” Arum said when I asked him about the truce between he and the HBO shot caller.
I was starting think we might next see true peace in the Mideast when I then witnesses Greenburg approaching and shaking hands with Internet critic Tom Hauser.
“They’re going to have lunch together,” Arum said. “That’s nice also.”
Now let’s get back to the guys you really care about, Megamanny and Miguel I’m No Angel Cotto.
IF MANNY WINS THIS FIGHT…
If he does not suffer any physical impairment, Pacquiao wants to fight on March 13, a date which gives him time to then get back to his political quest in his beloved homeland.
If Manny decisively beats Cotto and there is no promotional angle for an immediate rematch with Cotto, Arum will proceed to call his Golden Guy pal Richie Rich Schaefer to make Chapter 3 of the Pacman-Juan Manuel Marquez trilogy.
At the same time, and this gets tricky, Arum would prefer to make a bigger pile of money for himself and top client by making the gigantic Mayweather-Pacquiao bout. Problem is those negotiations will be a sticky wicket due to egos and greed on both sides and might not be doable so that it can go on as early as March 13. On the other hand, and Arum is always playing three to four hands of pugilistic poker, Floyd versus Manny could get pushed over to a May date and Juan Ma would be left at the altar.
My minority opinion remains the same. I stick to saying that Pacman may want to put his election first and wait until after the ballots are counted before fighting again. He may or may not be bruised up when this fight is over but he has to be somewhat emotionally drained.
I would think that Megamanny has more than earned the right for holiday fun and frolic with friends and family back home after this fight ends, wouldn’t you?
IF MIGUEL WINS THIS FIGHT…
Can you say rematch, as in immediate rematch? Those words will come tumbling off Arum’s lips if the situation is right late on Saturday night. And if the second bout is any kind of barnburner, regardless of who wins although it would be better if the score was evened up at 1-1, you cannot rule out a threematch.
If he overcomes 3-1 odds and beats Manny, then obviously Cotto looms as the next Mayweather foe. Certain to be a Vegas bout as Floyd won’t want to go to New York where taxes, labor unions and other financial sticking points make things murky.
Let’s say Miguel wins and there is no quickie rematch against Manny for whatever reason, then the obvious revenge bout foe is Cotto conqueror and hand wrap cheater caught in the act, Antonio Margarito.
Here again, Arum smiles like the cat who swallowed all the canaries as he would have both ends of the promotion.
Arum enjoys and profits from these TRO (Top Rank Only) promotions.
“What do I need them for?” Arum said. “Why should I invite them in when I have all these guys?”
And now, we await the first ding in the ring…
