Did Floyd Mayweather duck Winky Wright? Please chime in.

[GhostofDempsey]

Not beefing with you...but just a few questions.

I don't have a problem with this article as I think it shows Bob Arum up to his usual shenanigans, but I was wondering how do you take this article and everything mentioned in it as the gospel yet reject the article regarding the 50/50 contract for Pac/May (not to mention you reject US court cases, newspaper articles, etc.) . Again, not beefing with you at all, but it doesn't seem consistent.


Also, do you think 55/45 was an unfair offer? Remember, this was a Mayweather who last fought at 140. He would be rehydrating no higher than 148. Winky last fought at 160 and would in all likelihood be rehydrated to 162 on fight night, if the info. is correct.

For starters, Floyd's own team admits they never saw a 50/50 contract signed and ready for Pac's signature in 2009. In fact, Schaefer insisted that Floyd should not have to accept 50% and that he deserved the bigger share.

Per Schaefer himself:

Richard Schaefer, the chief executive officer of Golden Boy Promotions, said he did not recall sending a contract offering a 50-50 split.

"If we had a deal, how come we didn't have a fight?" Schaefer said when asked to comment.

Schaefer said he met Arum shortly before Thanksgiving in 2009 to discuss parameters of a deal, but said he didn't remember sending Top Rank a completed contract for signature that included a 50-50 purse split.

However, in a contract obtained by Yahoo! Sports, paragraph 11 under the section entitled Net Profits reads: "Net Profits shall be allocated 50/50 between GBP and TR." The contract goes on to say that net profits would include a split of "all gross revenues."

In sub-paragraph 11 (a), entitled HBO PPV Fight Night Advance, it reads, "Not withstanding the foregoing, the HBO PPV fight night advance shall be paid 50% directly to GBP and 50% directly to TR."

Schaefer said Pacquiao's reluctance to accept the drug testing Mayweather was demanding in 2009 was "a deal killer." Still, Schaefer told Yahoo! Sports he didn't recall offering a 50-50 split, but said that even had he done so, it wouldn't apply now given what has subsequently happened in the fighters' careers.

"It never happened, but for the sake of argument, let's say that the 50-50 split was offered back then," Schaefer said. "A long time has passed. Let's say that I wanted in 2009 to hire you and I offered you $100,000. We didn't sign a contract, but now, I come to you and said, 'Kevin, I know now you are worth $200,000. You are more accomplished and more famous than you were in 2009, but remember that contract I offered you in 2009 where I said I would pay you $100,000? Well, I want you to sign that now.' Like I said, I don't think that ever happened, but if it did, circumstances are vastly different now."

For another, if such a contract did exist, it would have been posted all over social media and the internet as a way for Floyd to prove he wasn't ducking Pacquiao. That contract has never been materialized. A draft contract is not a final contract.

[Zaryu]

I don't know about ducking, but I think Floyd made comments, don't really remember if he called Winky out, but he was at that stage in his career where he was talking a lot, saying no one from 154 lbs down could beat him, etc. Winky was vocal about willing to prove him wrong, but I think everyone knew based on size and style that Floyd wouldn't really go that route.

[travestyny]

For starters, Floyd's own team admits they never saw a 50/50 contract signed and ready for Pac's signature in 2009. In fact, Schaefer insisted that Floyd should not have to accept 50% and that he deserved the bigger share.

Per Schaefer himself:

Richard Schaefer, the chief executive officer of Golden Boy Promotions, said he did not recall sending a contract offering a 50-50 split.

"If we had a deal, how come we didn't have a fight?" Schaefer said when asked to comment.

Schaefer said he met Arum shortly before Thanksgiving in 2009 to discuss parameters of a deal, but said he didn't remember sending Top Rank a completed contract for signature that included a 50-50 purse split.

However, in a contract obtained by Yahoo! Sports, paragraph 11 under the section entitled Net Profits reads: "Net Profits shall be allocated 50/50 between GBP and TR." The contract goes on to say that net profits would include a split of "all gross revenues."

In sub-paragraph 11 (a), entitled HBO PPV Fight Night Advance, it reads, "Not withstanding the foregoing, the HBO PPV fight night advance shall be paid 50% directly to GBP and 50% directly to TR."

Schaefer said Pacquiao's reluctance to accept the drug testing Mayweather was demanding in 2009 was "a deal killer." Still, Schaefer told Yahoo! Sports he didn't recall offering a 50-50 split, but said that even had he done so, it wouldn't apply now given what has subsequently happened in the fighters' careers.

"It never happened, but for the sake of argument, let's say that the 50-50 split was offered back then," Schaefer said. "A long time has passed. Let's say that I wanted in 2009 to hire you and I offered you $100,000. We didn't sign a contract, but now, I come to you and said, 'Kevin, I know now you are worth $200,000. You are more accomplished and more famous than you were in 2009, but remember that contract I offered you in 2009 where I said I would pay you $100,000? Well, I want you to sign that now.' Like I said, I don't think that ever happened, but if it did, circumstances are vastly different now."

For another, if such a contract did exist, it would have been posted all over social media and the internet as a way for Floyd to prove he wasn't ducking Pacquiao. That contract has never been materialized. A draft contract is not a final contract.

You have to read between the lines here. Arum, in the same article, admit that they had the contract. You posted part of the article, but skipped over that part.

"We have a contract that they sent us and all the terms have been agreed to," Arum said. "All this that's been going on – 'Bob Arum doesn't want it,' and 'I'm entitled to this and that,' is all [expletive]. All [expletive]. This is their lawyer who prepared this, sent copies to everyone. … This isn't something I wrote and passed out. Their lawyer did this and sent it to us."

Mayweather stated that they had the contract. The only one that denied it was Golden Boy because they didn't want to be held to 50/50 (you can easily see their concern about this in one of your final paragraphs above). Kevin Iole is a neutral boxing insider who reported that he had the contract. I don't know why he would be disbelieved. Dan Rapheal's sources also told him that 50/50 was agreed upon.

In any event, it's fine to say that 50/50 was never offered. But what we do know is that the terms of the contract were agreed to, but the fight didn't happen only because Pacquiao claimed he needed 24 days to recover from giving 2 tsps of blood.

I don't want to hijack this into a thread about May/Pac, but I'll give you the last word on if you think that is reasonable or not.

[HitmanTommy]

Actually, it was Mayweather who demanded the 55/45 split after they had already agreed to 50/50, Arum was just the messenger. Typical Floyd moving the goal post.

"M-O-N-E-Y," stated Shaw in spelling out the reason why this bout between two of the premier prizefighters in the world will not be taking place. "I thought we had a deal. I spoke with Don King, King was on board, Jim Wilkes was on board, Winky Wright was on board. We agreed to 154 pounds, we agreed to another morning weight because they were concerned about the weight -- Winky couldn't gain more than eight pounds above 154."

With all of Winky's representatives (including King, who holds an option on Wright after his victory over Felix Trinidad in May) in agreement, Shaw thought he would be signing contracts by the end of the week.

"When I was in Arum's office he talked about different splits," recalled Shaw, who said at that time the numbers he was told differed from the ones he had agreed to. "I started to yell, I said, 'It's gotta be 50-50.' He said, 'All right, all right. Why are you yelling? I'm just the messenger. Come back, we'll do the deal.' I walked downstairs here at the Beverly Hills Hotel, I said, 'We have a deal?' He looked at me and said, '55-45.' I said, 'No, 50-50. He said, 'There's no deal.' "

Arum confirmed that Wright-Mayweather is dead as of now.

"There were requests made by Floyd Mayweather, we laid it out and I think they were fair requests," said the veteran promoter. "Gary rejected them, so there's no fight. We have to sit with Floyd and we'll figure out [what we do next].

Did Mayweather and Arum come to the realization that in facing the much bigger Wright, that they were biting off more than even the "Pretty Boy" could chew?

"Floyd's been talking a lot of trash, saying he's going to knock Winky out; he told Kevin Iole he wants to fight," said Shaw. "He wanted the fight on Sunday. On Monday I went to Top Rank's office personally. My feeling is that Floyd never wanted the fight. He was just talking smack."

http://www.espn.com/sports/boxing/news/story?id=2113721

This is very interesting. So it really was a fight that was close to being made.

[travestyny]

This is very interesting. So it really was a fight that was close to being made.

Oh yea. It was all done. Terms of the contract were agreed to. Pacquiao even asked for a weight penalty, which Mayweather accepted.

It fell apart on Pacquiao insisting on 24 days to recover from giving blood, and refusing Mayweather's compromise of 14 days, which to any reasonable person is more than fair.

[Madison Boxing]

mayweather would have beat him pretty easily

[HitmanTommy]

mayweather would have beat him pretty easily

oh yeah?..