by Ronnie Nathanielsz
Pound-for-pound king Manny Pacquiao’s adviser is back from Abu Dhabi and basically tells us that the proposed deal to stage a multi-million dollar fight between Pacquiao and Antonio Margarito for the vacant WBC light middleweight title in the oil-rich United Srab Emirates is still hanging.
Koncz told us that the representatives of the Royal Family in Abu Dhabi “don’t like the idea of working with deadlines” as apparently given by Top Rank promoter Bob Arum.
Koncz also revealed that they had only five days to study the huge package offer given them and that such megabuck deals can’t be worked out that easily.
However, Koncz said he is supposed to call the Abu Dhabi group later today to find out whether they have a deal or not.
Arum himself told us he hadn’t heard from Koncz and when informed that we had spoken to the Pacquiao adviser earlier Monday said he would call him to get an update.
In the meantime Arum said he is optimistic that if Don King has “captured” Floyd Mayweather Jr then a Pacquiao – Mayweather fight next spring is a real possibility.
Arum told BoxingScene.com, insidesports.ph, Standard Today and Viva Sports “it looks like King may have captured Mayweather and if Don ends up with Mayweather then with King there’s no nonsense. We will go away for a weekend, we’ll fight the s—t out of each other, we’ll yell and scream and put a deal together.”
Arum said he had spoken to Don King and “I’m very optimistic that we can do the fight next spring” although Arum made it clear that the Margarito fight will go ahead as planned for November 13.
The astute Top Rank promoter disclosed that he has a 2:00 p.m. meeting with Jerry Jones, owner of the fantastic Dallas Cowboys Stadium where Pacquiao vs Joshua Clottey drew almost 51,000 fight fans, to pursue the staging of the Pacquiao-Margarito fight at the Cowboys $1.2 billion stadium.
