By Mark Vester
It appears that despite various reports on the net, Golden Boy Promotions owner, Oscar De La Hoya, confirmed to scribe Dan Rafael that Manny Pacquiao has been signed to seven-fight deal (330K signing bonus) with his company, and will likely finish his career with Golden Boy.
"Yes, we have signed Manny Pacquiao Manny wants to finish his career with us," De La Hoya said. "It puts a smile on my face because he trusts us. He is putting his career in our hands. It says a lot about our company."
De La Hoya's rival, Bob Arum of Top Rank, was in the hunt for Manny Pacquiao, but De La Hoya admits that he was willing to do anything to sign the Filipino superstar.
"It was basically us out-thinking the competition. I had a goal and that goal was to sign Manny Pacquiao. We strategized and we figured it out and we were willing to do whatever it took to sign him."
But, Bob Arum is not done yet. Arum tells Rafael that by signing a contract with De La Hoya, Pacquiao is in violation of his contract agreement for the November 18 trilogy bout with Erik Morales. It appears that there was language in the contract that forbid Pacquiao from signing with any promoter before the bout.
"If he signed with Golden Boy, it violates the contract we have with Manny for this fight," Arum said. "I have a specific provision against it. It says you can't sign until after this fight with any other promoter. It's specific and says it clearly. Golden Boy has torturously interfered with our contract. Under the specific language of the contract, they had to wait until after the fight was over to sign. I'm not going to let it slide."
Arum is going to let his lawyers do the talk said that he will not allow De La Hoya or his company to be involved in any form with the promotion of Pacquiao-Morales 3.
While it's unlikely that Arum will call off the bout due to the contract violation, lawsuits stemming from De La Hoya's signing of Pacquiao are likely to happen, and how that will affect Pacquiao is unknown at the moment.
