By David "Los Gatos" Rosenberg
WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. has continued to apply the pressure for a May 5th unification with Manny Pacquiao. On Tuesday, Mayweather unleashed a series of Twitter messages - aimed at Pacquiao and his promoter, Top Rank's CEO Bob Arum. Mayweather wants is pushing to fight Pacquiao on May 5th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, while Arum and Pacquiao have requested a date in late-May at an outdoor arena on the Las Vegas strip. The outdoor arena would be constructed specifically for the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight. Arum says the earliest the outdoor venue can be completed is late-May.
If the two fighters go in separate directions, then Mayweather is likely going to fight WBC 154-pound champion Saul "Canelo" Alvarez. Pacquiao is reviewing four possible options - including Lamont Peterson, Timothy Bradley, Miguel Cotto and Juan Manuel Marquez. Cotto, who Pacquiao stopped in 2009, is the current favorite to get the fight.
"January 16th was Dr. Martin Luther King's Birthday. January 17th is Muhammad Ali's birthday and May 5th is Pacquiao's ass whooping day. First they say I'm Ducking the fight. But now it seems like I'm begging for the fight.. What is going on?," Mayweather wrote.