"When did he say that?" asked Arum, who added,"I mean, we’re prepared to fight Floyd Mayweather but the fight may have to happen on March 13Th, rather than May 1st. We’ll know that tomorrow. If Mayweather doesn’t want to fight Pacquiao, fine, then maybe Yuri Foreman will be a good opponent."
Pacquiao-Foreman on pay-per-view? Oy vey! Hey, the good news is that at least Foreman wont be on the undercard, right? But the veteran promoter insists that consummating a Mayweather fight is his top priority."That’s the fight I want to get done, the one I want to do. But if that is not possible for at least the first half of the year, I don’t know why Mayweather would object to a March 13Th date. Richard Schaefer is taking that position."
( Maxboxing attempted to get comment from Schaefer, but was unsuccessful.)
A pressing issue for Arum is when Pacquiao- regardless of who he faces- will get back into the ring. It will all depend on his political aspirations. He explains,"If he runs for Congress, the campaigning starts on March 25Th and the election is May 10Th. So that knocks out a May fight- if he’s opposed. If he’s unopposed; and we’ll know that tomorrow( Tuesday) morning because the filing deadline is Tuesday night in the Philippines, which is Tuesday morning here in Pacific Coast Time, it’s eight o’clock in the morning. We’ll know for sure whether he’s opposed or unopposed. If he’s unopposed, than May 1st is clearly an acceptable date."
When asked if a Pacquiao-Mayweather showdown could take place in the second half of 2010, like Hopkins’ scenario, Arum answered,"I guess anything is possible. The question is, do you lose anything by putting the fight on March 13Th, as against May 1st? If you had to do that. And people that I know and respect, say no. You may have to work a little harder and it would have to be concentrated but I don’t think you’d be harmed in the slightest putting it in March rather than in May."
But Arum has a clear preference.
"I would like it in May because it gives you more time to do it," he said." But if it becomes a case of not being able to go in May because of the political thing, then I think March 13Th, would be acceptable."
If a Mayweather fight can not be made, immediately, Arum says that Pacquiao will,"absolutely" fight in March. As for Mayweather possibly facing Mosley- who has a late January appointment with Andre Berto- could this be a hard bluff?
"No, I don’t know who they’re bluffing or what they’re bluffing," said Arum."I mean, there’s nothing they’re going to do to prevent Manny from running for Congress. Nothing they can do or I can do and it is, what it is."
So bring on ’the Runnin’ Rabbi’!!!
"Let’s not jump with a Foreman fight," stated Arum, who is leaving for the Philippines to talk to his client and close a television deal."The idea is to get a Mayweather fight done. I’ll know more tomorrow morning."
REBUTTAL
Maxboxing is an equal opportunity website, so we gave Dunkin his chance to respond:
" He’s an idiot, he really is," he said on Monday afternoon." He doesn’t even know what is going on with his own fighter, I don’t think he’s in touch with his own promoter. I mean, they made a deal last year before the Hopkins fight for us to fight. We were done, we were fine with Paul Williams, that’s who we were fighting. We didn’t want to fight Hopkins, it’s not that Kelly didn’t want to fight Paul Williams, he was fine with facing him. You think he wanted to move up in weight and fight Bernard Hopkins and go to 170?!?! That was the last choice that we had because Paul Williams wouldn’t fight. Now, I’m not saying it was Paul Williams, I’m telling you that Dan Goossen screwed the whole deal up by doubling the money at the last minute- which killed the fight.
"The original fight was $750,000, then they went to $900,000. And then Bob Arum even talked about a million and everybody was going,’My gosh, the money keeps going up’ and all of a sudden Goossen comes back like with $1.5 million, plus he wants limos and rooms and percentages of this and that. And it killed the fight, that was before Hopkins. Now we go into this one and they were wrong about the hand, but to say there was no staph infection, what a stupid man to even make a comment like that when the kid was in the emergency room and we have documents, pictures and everyone knows that this kids hand was really bad and his health was bad. And now that we say,’OK, you fight, we’re going to fight’ and two weeks made the difference, his hands still not 100-percent, but he’s going to fight and then we can fight next year.
"Now to say he wouldn’t entertain it, no, because you wouldn’t entertain it before. Listen, he’s not worth the money that he charges, he doesn’t sell ten tickets and Kelly’s giving up tons of money to fight the guy. He’s still willing to do it. Kelly’s not afraid to fight anybody, at anytime, anywhere and he’s proved that over and over again. This isn’t about the fighters. But to make stupid comments like I would call Paul Williams a coward because he didn’t fight the first fight, what kind of non-sense is it for him to call Kelly Pavlik a coward?
" Who is George Peterson to say that after Kelly fought Miranda, and he fought Zertuche, he fought Zuniga and he fought Jermain Taylor twice and he fought Hopkins and he was offered to fight you and he took the fight, I mean, c’mon. Stop this non-sense. He’s from the old-school, people don’t fight anymore? Doesn’t he watch boxing? Maybe he didn’t watch Pacquiao and Cotto. Stupid comment."
But outside of that, Dunkin said he enjoyed my article a great deal.
EARLY FLURRIES
Arum reiterated that Miguel Cotto would most likely make his return in June and if the Puerto Rican Day parade coincides with a Yankee road trip, that Yankee Stadium is a possibility to stage that fight....This weeks edition of Shobox features Tyrone Brunson versus Carson Jones( I like Jones in that one) and Mauricio Herrera taking on Mike Anchondo....I’m told that Juan Carlos Salgado will make the first defense of his WBA 130-pound title in January in Japan....I can’t lie, even as a Miami fan, I will miss Bobby Bowden, he was the heart and soul of the Seminole program. It wont be the same without him....As for Charlie Weis and Notre Dame, how ironic was it that he ended up with a worse winning percentage than Ty Willingham when it was all said and done?....Scheduled to join us on this weeks edition of ’
the Main Event’ is Tim Bradley and Chris Arreola, again, cross your fingers.....Any questions or comments, you can email me at
k9kim@yahoo.com.....
Twitter.com/stevemaxboxing.....
