Manny Pacquiao vs Floyd Mayweather Fight Sealed? Pacman Agrees to Terms Set By The Money's Camp
After more than five years, the fight of the century may soon happen.
Sam Watson, confidant of Floyd Mayweather's adviser Al Haymon, said on Wednesday that the final details of Mayweather's fight with eight-division champion Manny Pacquiao is being worked out.
"They're putting it together now," Watson said, per The Guardian. "They're going to do a Showtime-HBO [joint pay-per-view] like they did last time with Lennox Lewis and Mike Tyson. They're working on the monies now and everything they've got to work on to make it happen."
The undefeated Mayweather (47-0, 26 KOs) would brawl with Pacquiao (57-5-2, 38 KOs) on May 2, Watson told The Guardian, following a press conference at the Rockefeller Center to announce the multi-year agreement between NBC Sports and Haymon Boxing, which signals boxing's return to primetime television network.
The recluse Haymon is considered the most powerful figure in the boxing arena of influence and also the chief architect of Mayweather's rise as the world's highest-paid athlete.
Pacquiao and his promoter Top Rank already expressed its agreement on the May 2 bout on Tuesday.
"Top Rank and Manny [Pacquiao] have agreed to the terms on our side. I don't know about the other (Mayweather's) side," Top Rank vice president Carl Moretti told ESPN.com.
ESPN reported that Top Rank chair Bob Arum has been negotiating the showdown for the past months through Leslie Moonves, president and CEO of CBS. Mayweather still has two fights left on his six-fight contract under CBS and its subsidiary Showtime.
Such is contrary to what Pacquiao's former strength and conditioning coach Alex Ariza said. Ariza, who now works under Mayweather's group, told Fighthype.com that it was Arum who was holding the fight off.
However, Ariza said Mayweather wanted to fight Pacquiao "very, very, very badly."
"He (Mayweather) wants this fight more than ever right now. I haven't known him that long, but I don't think I've ever heard him talk about wanting to fight anybody this much. He usually doesn't care who he fights. It could be this guy or that guy, but he really wants to fight Manny [Pacquiao]," he added.
Should the fight push through, it would be at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Moretti said in the ESPN report. Mayweather had his past 10 fights there and Pacquiao, five of his past seven bouts.
According to an ESPN insider, Pacquiao agreed to a 40-60 revenue cut, leaving Mayweather with the bigger chunk from the fight that would reportedly break every boxing box-officer record. Top Rank initially wanted to have the historic fight happen in June to leave May 2 for another.
However, Top Rank gave in on the date which Mayweather insisted himself, along with the gloves to be used (Mayweather fights in Grant while Pacquiao boxes in Cleto Reyes) and drug testing to be conducted by U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, per ESPN.