By Mark Vester
They met, and met, and met. The camps for Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. met for nine hours on Tuesday before mediator Daniel Weinstein at his office in Santa Monica, California. As previously reported on BoxingScene.com, Top Rank's Bob Arum and Todd deBoef set a meeting before Weinstein with Oscar De La Hoya and Richard Schaefer of Golden Boy Promotions. Their legals teams were there, and so was Mayweather's adviser Al Haymon.
For nine hours they tried to solve several problems; including the dispute over the random blood tests for Mayweather-Pacquiao. Mayweather wants random tests within 30-days leading up the fight. Pacquiao wants the random tests to end at the 30-day cut-off. There is also the issue with Pacquiao's defamation suit against De La Hoya, Schaefer and the Mayweathers.
And Top Rank is trying to remove Golden Boy's financial interest from Pacquiao. They feel Golden Boy hurt the career of Pacquiao by making comments that insinuated possible use of performance enhancing drugs. The Filipino fighter signed with both promotional companies in 2006 and that led to a legal battle. Golden Boy received the minor financial interest in a settlement with Top Rank in 2007.
Negotiations will continue. Neither side is talking with a gag order placed on all parties. There is no word on when the mediation will resume. If the fight gets made, the tentative date will fall on either March 13 or March 20. As the clock winds down, a March date becomes more of a stretch.
While talks may continue, both sides have already made their backup plans. Top Rank will have Pacquiao go up to junior middleweight to face unbeaten WBA champion Yuri Foreman [also with Top Rank] on March 20 at the Thomas and Mack Center in Las Vegas. Golden Boy will have Mayweather step back in the ring on March 13 and the current frontrunner is former junior welterweight champion Paulie Malignaggi.
Foreman vs. Pacquiao will be interesting for a few reasons. People will want to see how Manny deals with a such a large fighter. Foreman could very well weigh 170-pounds by fight time. Pacquiao will be going for his eight divisional world title. Foreman has boxing ability and a "decent" punch at the weight. Pacquiao will have the speed but some doubt he will pack enough punch to hurt Foreman.
Mayweather vs. Malignaggi will be a pure boxing match with two quick, defensive minded boxers. Tough to see a knockout here. It can play out in two ways. Twelve rounds of trash-talking with quick action or a boring twelve round chess match with two guys looking for openings.
It's hard to see both fights happen back to back. They would have to both be on HBO pay-per-view. Mayweather and Pacquiao make too much money for either fight to land on regular HBO. It's also very rare for HBO to have back to back pay-per-view events. One of the events will suffer. Some expect one of the events to get moved.
Send News Tips and Comments To Mark Vester @ boxingvester@gmail.com
