By Chris Robinson
During the promotion of the recent Miguel Cotto-Ricardo Mayorga contest, it was easy to spot just how chummy former rival promoters Don King and Bob Arum where throughout the lead up to the fight. It had been five years since the duo had collaborated together in such a fashion, going back to the April 2006 Floyd Mayweather-Zab Judah bout, and Arum has left the door open for working with King in the future.
Arum is currently overseas in the Philippines assessing his star fighter Manny Pacquiao in training as he gets ready for a May 7th date with 'Sugar' Shane Mosley at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. During Arum's recent interview with MPBoxing.com, the topic of Mayweather came up, as Bob revealed that he and King had again looked into making a possible fight between the Las Vegas superstar and Pacquiao.
Last year negotiations twice broke down between sides of Pacquiao and Mayweather and it doesn't look as though the third time will be the charm, as Arum claimed that Mayweather is now asking for $100 million to make the fight a reality. Wanting to get a some feeback on the latest news surrounding Floyd I had to ask what his father thought of all of this.
"I can't speak on what he feels on that," Floyd Sr. told me earlier today. "In this particular era right now, there's no time for that kind of purse. I'm just saying that one-hundred million is a big number. I think [Muhammad] Ali and [Joe] Frazier, for their first one I think they got two and a half a piece wasn't it? They aint never gave nobody one-hundred million."
Continuing on, Mayweather Sr. firmly believes that this is just a case of his son either being peer-pressured or even misrepresented in some fashion.
"I'm telling you the truth, all it is is people whispering in his ears. And I know exactly who is saying it. It isn't Lil' Floyd talking, it's somebody putting stuff in his ear. I know exactly who it is too. Those are not his words," Floyd Sr. rambled on.
As our brief dialogue came to a close Floyd Sr. said that he hasn't spoken with Floyd Jr. in a while and didn't seem too bothered by that fact. Despite not being asked for his take on a Pacquiao-Mayweather fight, Sr. was outspoken enough to again give his two cents.
"Like I said, what I know for a fact is, as far as Floyd returning and fighting, him and Pacquiao is a total mismatch. There is only one way that Pacquiao can whip Floyd and everybody knows what that is. We know that, as far as on the up and up, he aint got a chance."
