Bob Arum says the loose talk from Mayweather was only meant to steal the spotlight.
Once again there is excitement about a possible Floyd Mayweather Jr.-Manny Pacquiao title fight.
Once again there is the reality that this highly anticipated mega-fight may never happen.
A day after Mayweather hinted that the MGM Grand in Las Vegas was the place and May 5 was the date, Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum dismissed such talk as grandstanding, according to an ESPN.com report.
Arum believes Mayweather was simply trying to steal some of the spotlight away from Pacquiao’s Nov. 12 welterweight title defense against Juan Manuel Marquez.
"Listen, we're not going to consider anything until after the Marquez fight," Arum said. "The way they are going about it seems like a bizarre way to go about it. If you want to put it together, you meet, you talk. You don't just come out and say, 'The fight is May 5 at the MGM.' What kind of negotiation is that? So I don't take what they said seriously.
"I think it's Floyd's way of trying to grab a little bit of the spotlight away from Manny. I'm not going to get upset. I take it with a grain of salt."
"When they want to do some serious negotiating somebody will call me or [Top Rank president] Todd [duBoef] and we will sit down and talk. It's obviously a fight we want to make," Arum said.
Certainly this bout, if it ever happens, would break all kinds of pay-per-view and box office records because of the two fighters’ reputations and the anticipation that has been building for years.
Contact Terrance Harris at terrancefharris@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @Terranceharris
(Photo: Al Bello/Getty Images)
On Facebook
On Twitter
