Once word spread that one of the best pound-for-pound fighters of our generation in Manny Pacquiao signed a two-year contract extension with promoter Top Rank, the first thing to most people’s minds was that a Pacquiao-Floyd Mayweather Jr. bout will never happen.
The fact is Pacquiao extending his deal with Top Rank had no effect at all on the super-bout the world has been waiting to see.
With the bad blood and war of words that has gone on between Pacquiao’s and Mayweather’s camps over the past four years, ever since the initial negotiations between the two fighters went sour the fight will not be made no matter what takes place.
Despite the monetary benefits that the bout would present both fighters, the biggest possible bout that could have been made during the past decade will never come to fruition. This will leave black marks on both Pacquiao’s and Mayweather’s records, as fans will always think “What if” the mega-bout ever took place.
Even with Golden Boy’s Oscar De La Hoya and Top Rank’s Bob Arum being cordial with each other recently in an attempt to end the “Cold War” that is going in in boxing, the Pacquiao-Mayweather bout is nowhere closer to being a reality than it was before the two began to hash out their differences.
Mayweather is not a Golden Boy fighter, he just co-promotes with them for his bouts with his own promotional company Mayweather Promotions. Mayweather calls the shot to whom he will and won’t fight and unless Pacquiao will fight Mayweather for a much smaller payday than he is hoping for our generation will never see the best of our time mix it up in the ring.
Even with recent reports that Arum thinks that the bout will take place once Mayweather finishes out his six-fight Showtime/CBS deal that has three more fights left that the bout could take place with Mayweather going for the 50-0 record against Pacquiao, anyone with any sense won’t believe the hype.
The fans and media alike have had their hopes up only to have the crushed many times before regarding a Pacquiao-Mayweather bout, so if one has any sense left they know better than to feed into the nonsense.
There is one small glimmer of hope, but as is the case since Pacquiao lost to Bradley and Marquez in 2012, money will be a factor to Mayweather giving it any real thought. The AEG/MGM Arena is slated to open in May 2016 and there are talks of a Mayweather headlined bout taking place to open up the arena the Vegas area has been waiting on for some time.
So holding off on any Pacquiao-Mayweather talk until then would make the most sense, but with fan interest in the two that won’t happen even after the two call it quits in the ring within the next few years.
