Floyd Mayweather gets extension, Pacquiao pushes for mega fight!

Boxing superstar Manny Pacquiao spoke with the Manila Bulletin this morning expressing his satisfaction and delight that rival boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr is not going to be sentenced to jail until June 1st, thus giving the opportunity for the mega showdown in May afterall. Manny already had a meeting scheduled this week with promoter Bob Arum to discuss his next bout. The proposed names Arum had on the table were previous opponents Juan Manuel Marquez and Miguel Cotto, and also in the mix was Lamont Peterson and undefeated Timothy Bradley, Manny has now stated he will definitely be pushing for a Mayweather bout and plans to let Arum know in their meeting how adamant he is about getting this fight made. The only set back could be the negotiations, Pacquiao has swallowed his pride and has stated he will be ok with taking a smaller portion of the proposed $100 million purse split between the two and has even agreed to the Olympic style drug testing Mayweather has demanded which what caused the previous negotiations to implode. Now it seems there is nothing holding back the fight from happening now and the ball is in Floyd’s court at this time. However, there are a couple of other factors that could once again prevent this fight from being made.

Lets talk venue, Floyd Mayweather Jr is contracted to fight in Las Vegas at the MGM Grand Garden arena and Bob Arum feels a fight of this magnitude should be held at a bigger venue, I agree. Some of the venues previously being tossed around were Cowboy’s stadium in Dallas, Texas, and a few locations across the globe one being in Dubai the other being the home of Ali-Foreman, Zaire South Africa. I feel personally Dubai or Zaire would be fitting, giving this mega fight a nostalgic feel to it as many of the biggest bouts in boxing were held outside of the country. There has also been talk of building a 40,000 seat stadium on the Vegas strip specifically for this fight and other sporting events to follow, the only problem with that is will the stadium be ready by May or June?. There have also been rumors of Floyd Mayweather setting up a fight with two other Mexican rivals, one being Robert Guerrero who would be moving up in weight to secure this fight or one against the bigger, younger, undefeated Mexican superstar Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, a fight I’m sure that would be fought at a catch weight between 147-154 somewhere. The Alvarez fight certainly has more appeal to it than the Guerrero fight being that Alvarez is such a huge superstar in Mexico and it would take place on Cinco De Mayo weekend, however I also feel that Robert Guerrero’s style and ring savvy will give Floyd fits in the ring. Mayweather has May 5th reserved, Pacquiao is penciled in for a May or June bout, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that both Mayweather and Pacquiao fight separate bouts in May and June and set up their long awaited showdown for sometime in November, giving Floyd the time needed to fulfill his 90 day sentence starting June 1st. That is enough time to get out and get him self ready for combat come November. I expect to hear an official statement release from the Pacquiao camp this week.