7 ?'s THAT NEED TO BE ASKED ABOUT ARUM'S "NEGOTIATIONS" WITH GREENBURG AND HAYMON

http://www.fighthype.com/pages/content8030.html There's been a number of different revelations regarding the alleged second round of negotiations for the proposed November 13 mega-fight between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao. According to Pacquiao's promoter, Bob Arum, negotiations between he and Al Haymon were running smoothly through HBO Sports president Ross Greenburg, who was acting as a mediator between both sides. That fact would be disputed, however, by Mayweather Promotions CEO Leonard Ellerbe, who claimed that negotations never took place. One would think that the middle man, Greenburg, would be able to supply some clarity, but unfortunately, his only response on the matter has been "no comment." Whether or not negotiations actually took place remains a mystery, however, in my opinion, there's 7 easy questions that can be answered by Arum, the only person who seems to have any knowledge or memory of the conversations, that will clear up any confusion. 1. WHY WAS THERE NO DIRECT COMMUNICATION BETWEEN BOTH SIDES? It seems odd that the biggest and most lucrative fight in boxing was being negotiated without the two principal sides ever having any direct communication with each other. Now, I know there's some...okay, maybe a lot of dislike between Bob Arum and Al Haymon, but surely you would think that they could set aside their differences in order to pick up the phone, call each other, and have just one conversation regarding an event of this magnitude. Why was their a decision to use the HBO Sports president as a mediator in the first place and exactly who made that decision? 2. WHY WASN'T GOLDEN BOY PROMOTIONS INVOLVED? The first time around, Floyd Mayweather made it clear that Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer was authorized to handle any and all negotiations regarding a potential clash with Manny Pacquiao. In fact, it was Schaefer and Top Rank president Todd duBoef who worked diligently together the first time around to finalize the deal, as promoter Bob Arum removed himself from discussions due to his personal dislike of Mayweather. This time around, however, Arum made it crystal clear that Golden Boy Promotions was not involved at all, revealing that he had no contact with or heard any mention of anyone associated with Golden Boy Promotions, including Richard Schaefer and Oscar De La Hoya. The question is why? 3. WHO MADE FIRST CONTACT? Which side made the initial contact to restart the negotiation process? Team Mayweather? Team Pacquiao? Thus far, all we know from promoter Bob Arum was that this second round of negotiations allegedly began when he had "a couple of conversations" with HBO Sports president Ross Greenburg, where he laid out the terms that would be acceptable to Team Pacquiao. Does that mean that Team Pacquiao approached Ross Greenburg? Was it Team Mayweather that approached Ross Greenburg inquiring about Team Pacquiao? Or was this simply a case of Ross Greenburg doing some research on his own? 4. EXACTLY HOW MANY CONVERSATIONS TOOK PLACE? It's unclear as to the exact timeframe in which these alleged negotiations took place, but according to Arum, it transpired over the course of several conversations. Now, are we talking 3 conversations? 5 conversations? 10 conversations? More? And did those conversations take place over the course of 1 week? 2 weeks? 1 month? More? Either way, knowing the timeframe of these conversations would go a long way in giving us an idea of just how serious these negotiations were really being discussed. 5. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME ARUM SPOKE WITH GREENBURG? Arum's deadline for Floyd Mayweather to accept their final terms was on Friday, July 16, but given that there was no direct communication with any member of Team Mayweather, was Arum really expecting to get a reply from them? Obviously not, so I'm curious to know when was the last time that Arum had anymore conversations with Ross Greenburg? Surely, I would think that Arum might have tried to reach out to Greenburg and ask him if he had heard a response. Unfortunately, Arum never revealed whether or not he did, only stating that he had not heard from Greenburg and that "there was no message." Call me crazy, but if I was really that eager to find out a response from the one man that I was having "conversations" with, I'd be on the phone with him at least some time during the hours leading up to the deadline. So I'm curious, when exactly was the last conversation between Arum and Greenburg? 6. WHAT EXACTLY WERE PACQUIAO'S ACCEPTABLE TERMS? According to Arum, when this whole negotiation process began, he presented to Ross Greenburg the terms that would be acceptable to Team Pacquiao, including the concession that Manny had made regarding drug testing. Well what were those terms? We assume that one of those terms was an even 50/50 split of the purse, as Arum has eluded to such in previous interviews, but a recent interview with Floyd Mayweather Sr. alludes to the fact that Floyd was unhappy with an even share of the money. And what exactly was Pacquiao's concession regarding drug testing? When pressed on the subject, Arum refused to give any specific details, stating only that "that issue was resolved, not as clear-cut as you may be saying it, but I believe it was resolved." The last we heard from Pacquiao on the subject was that he was only willing to agree to a 14-day cutoff for random blood testing. If those were indeed the terms proposed to Team Mayweather, were they truly acceptable and agreed upon by both sides, as Arum suggested? 7. WHY THE BIG ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE EXCLUSIVITY DEADLINE? Seriously, what was the purpose of making a big deal about an "exclusivity" deadline? According to Arum, although his promise to Greenburg to exclusively negotiate with Mayweather is now over, he's still more than willing to make the fight should Floyd agree to their terms before another potential opponent can agree to terms. Basically, that amounts to Bob Arum saying, "Hey Floyd, if you want to fight Manny, you got some competition now." Okay...great...assuming negotiations were really going on, I don't blame them for wanting to move on, but why make a big deal about? Why set this deadline, post a countdown clock and schedule a conference call right at the deadline? And then the over-the-top plea from Arum for the media to be sympathetic with Floyd...what was that really all about? Although we may never know whether or not negotiations actually took place, I suspect the truth lies somewhere in the middle of all of the murky information that has been revealed. While Arum may twist the truth to suit his purposes at times, I just don't think he would flat out lie about something if it never occurred. I have a pretty good feeling that some type of conversations took place between Arum and Ross Greenburg. Likewise, I also believe that there were a few conversations between Greenburg and Mayweather's advisor Al Haymon. Whether or not those conversations were official "negotiations" is a topic of debate best suited for a message board (and there's a pretty healthy debate going on about that in our own community), however, I do believe, at some point, those conversations did take place. That being said, I also believe that the middle man, Ross Greenburg, got played by two parties who were never really interested in making the fight on November 13 to begin with. Who's lying and who's telling the truth is irrelevant. The fact of the matter is that it appears as both sides already had their own plans for the remainder of 2010, so instead of going through the motions and acting like they're trying to make the fight, I'd rather they just move forward with the truth instead of getting the hopes up of boxing fans worldwide.