By Lem Satterfield
LAS VEGAS -- Top Rank Promotions CEO Bob Arum spoke to BoxingScene.com on Thursday regarding the potential for landing Floyd Mayweather for a match up with eight-division king Manny Pacquiao in addition to shedding light on the notion of whether or not Mayweather turned down millions for the proposed mega bout.
Arum is at the MGM Grand Hotel, site of Saturday night's clash between Pacquiao (52-3-2, 38 knockouts) and challenger and five-time champion, Shane Mosley, who is trying to take Pacquiao's WBO welterweight belt.
"This certainly will be the biggest fight of the year in terms of pay per view buys up until June," Arum said of Pacquiao-Mosley, which is sold out. "But what happens in the second part of the year, we don't know. Obviously, we're going to be doing some pay per view fights where we're going to try to top this."
Bob Arum on Floyd Mayweather's allegedly turning down $100 million to fight Manny Pacquiao.
"We were involved in a negotiation, and I received an e-mail from the guy conducting the negotiation that they were going home after all of this time because Mayweather had said that he won't fight for less than $100 million. The negotiations were taking place in Las Vegas. Mandela's daughter and son were over here with this South African group.
They met with me in my office. I said, 'Well, get it in writing, but don't get it in writing unless you get Mayweather.' They spent eight days negotiating with Mayweather and they came up with the only way that he would fight Manny Pacquiao was for $100 million.
But Mayweather thought that if he kept them talking, that they would allow him to fight some lesser opponent for a lot of money. The deal was that we were going to go to July to help Nelson Mandela celebrate his birthday. The fight would be in November, which is the summer in South Africa."
On drug-testing being a potential roadblock to Mayweather-Pacquiao in the future.
"There have been no negotiations. There have been none. There are none. But we have done whatever we can to eliminate any obstacles. For example, don't let anybody talk to you about this blood and or urine testing for drugs. We have bought into that completely. That is not an obstacle.
So if he or anybody with him says, 'Well, this fight would happen if he took the test.' Well, that's not being completely honest."