Mayweather: If a Pacquiao fight happens, it must be on Showtime PPV

By Rob Smith - 09/14/2014 - Comments

(Photo credit: Esther Lin/Showtime) Last night, WBA/WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr (47-0, 26 KOs) put on a master class performance in defeating Marcos Maidana (35-5, 31 KOs) by a 12 round unanimous decision in an action-packed fight from start to finish at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Maidana gave it his all, but Mayweather’s ability to avoid his huge power shots was the key to victory for Mayweather.

After the fight, Mayweather was asked if he would be interested in facing WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao. Mayweather said that Pacquiao first needs to get past Chris Algieri in November, but then other than that, he’ll need to agree to fight on Showtime pay-per-view and Mayweather Promotions would be the one doing the fight, not Top Rank, the promoters for Pacquiao. Either of those two things are likely more than enough for the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight not to happen, but with both of them in place, it’s not likely there will be a fight between them unless Mayweather changes his mind.

“If the Pacquiao fight does happen it has to happen on Showtime pay-per-view only and Mayweather Promotions have to do the fight,” Mayweather said via the Dailymail.co.uk. “At the moment I want to go home, have a break, spend some time with my children and then see who’s next in May. Hopefully it’s Manny Pacquiao.”

So the question is would Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank let Mayweather Promotions run the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight or would he insist in some kind of joint venture or with just Top Rank running the show? If this is something that couldn’t be negotiated out, then it would go to purse bids, and there’s no telling who would win that. But it looks like Mayweather won’t consider the fight against Pacquiao unless there’s some kind of an agreement that Mayweather Promotions will be running the show.

Additionally, it’s unknown at this time if Pacquiao has a deal with HBO. If he is under contract with HBO, there’s a possibility that they might give Pacquiao permission to fight on Showtime, but I kind of doubt it. Insisting on the fight being televised by Showtime PPV and promoted by Mayweather Promotions are going to be really tough obstacles to making a fight happen between the two fighters.

Of course, there’s also the purse split that would be need to be worked out, and the fight obviously won’t happen if Pacquiao and Bob Arum start talking about wanting a 50-50 split of the revenue for the fight. You’ve got to figure that Pacquiao’s fight against Chris Algieri in November will likely bring in embarrassingly low PPV totals, and once that happens, it’s going to be even tougher for Pacquiao and Arum to ask for a healthy cut of the revenue for a Mayweather fight.

The Pacquiao-Algieri fight could be a lot tougher bout than what many boxing fans believe it will be for the aging 35-year-old Pacquiao, because Algieri is a lot younger, a lot taller, and a much better defensive fighter than Pacquiao. Further, Algieri moves much better than Pacquiao, and we already saw Tim Bradley create the blue print in how to beat Pacquiao in 2012 by using movement. Pacquiao is horrible at cutting off the ring. He doesn’t cut off the ring like Maidana showed in his two recent fights against Mayweather.

Mayweather said immediately after the fight “We don’t know what the future holds, as of right now. Anything is possible. Manny needs to focus on the guy that’s in front of him. Once he gets past that task we’ll see what the future holds.”