by David P. Greisman
Floyd Mayweather Jr. says you shouldn’t believe what any of his critics, including members of the media, have said about his desire to fight Manny Pacquiao in the past — or alleged lack thereof.
“We tried to make this fight in the past,” Mayweather told Brian Custer of Showtime at a March 11 press conference for Mayweather vs. Pacquiao, which is finally happening more than five years after negotiations first began, headlining a huge pay-per-view on May 2.
“We kept bumping heads. The teams kept bumping heads because of random blood and urine testing,” Mayweather said. “Then about being the A-side and who's going to be the B-side. it was a lot of problems in the past. We finally resolved everything. The teams got on the same page and we made the fight happen.”
So much credit has gone to the chance encounter Mayweather and Pacquiao had at a Miami Heat basketball game, leading the fighters to believe in earnest that a deal could be made. Mayweather says that the credit, in the grand scheme, should be his.
“Everyone wants to keep talking about how this fight happened. This fight happened because of me,” Mayweather said. “This fight didn't happen because of Manny Pacquiao. Because I asked for the fight myself. We had to choose an opponent for May, and I said what better opponent to choose? And so we chose Pacquiao.”
Showtime executive Stephen Espinoza said during the press conference that Pacquiao’s name had come up time and again.
“We’re not at all surprised this fight was made,” Espinoza said. “As soon as we closed our deal with Floyd back in 2013, the Pacquiao fight was a top priority, both for Floyd and for us. Not everyone is aware because we didn’t talk about it much, but whenever it was time to discuss a Mayweather opponent, Manny Pacquiao was always high on Floyd’s list
“That was no surprise to us. We’ve known for at least five years that Floyd has wanted the Pacquiao fight very badly,” he said. “Back in 2009, I was personally involved the first time a Mayweather-Pacquiao fight was negotiated. I not only drafted the deal memo between the parties, but also the infamous drug testing clause that was ultimately the reason why the fight didn’t happen.”
Pick up a copy of David’s book, “Fighting Words: The Heart and Heartbreak of Boxing,” at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsamazon or internationally at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsworldwide. Send questions/comments via email at fightingwords1@gmail.com
