Mayweather vs. Pacquiao

"Fight of the Century"

Date	March 13, 2010
Location	An arena outside Las Vegas
Title(s) on the line	WBO Welterweight title. Vacant The Ring Welterweight title
Floyd Mayweather vs.  Manny Pacquiao
Money		Pac-Man
Tale of the tape
Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S.	From	General Santos City, Philippines
45–0 (26 KO)	Pre-fight record	50–3–2 (38 KO)
5 ft 8 in (1.73 m)	Height	5 ft 6.5 in (1.69 m)
Orthodox	Style	Southpaw
The Ring No. 2 ranked pound-for-pound	Recognition	The Ring No. 2 ranked pound-for-pound WBO Welterweight Champion The Ring Junior Welterweight Champion

Floyd Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao was a proposed boxing match between undefeated, five-division world champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. and then-eight-division world champion Manny Pacquiao. Despite predictions that Mayweather-Pacquiao would be the highest grossing fight in history,^[1][2] disagreements between the two fighters' camps on fight terms have prevented the bout from coming to fruition since negotiations began in 2009.^[1] The failure to make the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight was named Ring Magazine event of the year for 2010.^[3]

Background

A few months after his TKO victory over Ricky Hatton on December 8, 2007, Mayweather announced that he would retire from boxing,^[4] claiming he had achieved all he wanted to achieve.^[5] The 31-year-old Mayweather registered 39 wins and no losses in his historic career. At the time of his retirement, Ring Magazine had Floyd Mayweather ranked their number 1 pound-for-pound fighter, with Manny Pacquiao at number 2.

During Mayweather's retirement, Manny Pacquiao earned superstar status in much of the western world after his career-defining victory over Oscar De La Hoya, for which he jumped up from lightweight to welterweight.

On May 2, 2009, the day of Manny Pacquiao's fight with Ricky Hatton, Mayweather announced that he would come out of his 21-month retirement to fight The Ring lightweight champion and #2 pound-for-pound fighter Juan Manuel Márquez later that year.^[6] Marquez had previously fought Pacquiao in two controversial outings, once to a draw in 2004 and once to a split decision in Pacquiao's favor in early 2008.^[6] Mayweather played down Pacquiao's newfound stardom in his press conference, stating: " 'If he wins tonight, don't be all shocked ... Cause guess what? I beat (Hatton) when he was undefeated. Pacquiao beat Oscar, it don't matter. Going down to 147 pounds was too much for (De La Hoya), he was dead after the first round. I also think that Marquez beat him twice. When you talk boxing, you talk Floyd Mayweather.' "^[7]

Pacquiao would go on to defeat Hatton by KO in Round 2. The win made him the second boxer in history to win titles in six weight divisions, the first being Oscar De La Hoya.^[7]

Mayweather proceeded to beat Marquez by lopsided unanimous decision in their September, 2009 bout. After the fight, Mayweather's close friend and manager Leonard Ellerby stated that a fight with Manny Pacquiao was the "next obvious choice from a marketing standpoint."^[8]

On November 14, 2009, Pacquiao knocked out Puerto Rican star Miguel Cotto. Pacquiao's victory sparked a media frenzy, and fans immediately demanded a Mayweather-Pacquiao fight.^[9] Though the fight had yet to be made, Pacquiao opened as an 8-5 favorite in Las Vegas casinos.^[10]

First Negotiations

The first negotiations for the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight began in late 2009. On December 11, 2009, Golden Boy Promotions sent a fight contract on behalf of Mayweather to Top Rank, Pacquiao's promoter. The contract reportedly stipulated a March 13, 2010 fight date, and proposed a 50-50 financial split between the two sides.^[1] Mayweather also demanded that Olympic-style drug testing be conducted by the United States Anti-Doping Agency, which would entail random blood and urine testing through the day of the fight.^[2] This stipulation would prove to be a point of contention between the camps. Pacquiao refused to have any blood testing within 30 days from the fight, because he thought it would weaken him, but he was willing to have blood taken from him before the 30-day window as well as immediately after the fight.^[11] Furthermore, Freddie Roach, Pacquiao's trainer, commented that he would not allow blood to be taken from Pacquiao one week before the fight.^[12][13] In an attempt to resolve their differences, the two camps went through a process of mediation before a retired judge. After the mediation process Mayweather agreed to a 14-day no blood testing window. However, Pacquiao refused and instead only agreed to a 24-day no blood testing window.^[14] Consequently, on January 7, 2010, Pacquiao's promoter Bob Arum declared that the fight was officially off.^[15] Pacquiao went on to fight Joshua Clottey on the March 13 date, while Mayweather fought Shane Mosley in May. Both won by unanimous decision.

Reported Second Negotiations

On May 13, 2010, Pacquiao's promoter Bob Arum announced that he had penciled in November 13, 2010 as the date of Manny Pacquiao's next fight, possibly against Mayweather. However, the stumbling block over demands that Pacquiao submit to Olympic-level random drug testing put the fight in jeopardy.^[16] On June 12, 2010, president of Golden Boy Promotions Oscar De La Hoya stated during an interview with a Spanish network that a fight deal was near, although the negotiation process had been difficult.^[17] It was later reported that Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer and Top Rank Chief Bob Arum worked out a '"Super Fight" between Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather, Jr. Pacquiao agreed to undergo blood and urine testing up until 14 days before the fight, as demanded by the Mayweather camp in the first round of negotiations. On June 30 Arum announced that management for both sides had agreed to terms, all points of contention were settled, and only Mayweather's signature was needed to seal a deal that could have earned both fighters at least $40 million each.^[18]

After terms for the fight were reportedly agreed upon, Top Rank gave Mayweather a two-week deadline to sign the contract.^[19] On Thursday, July 15, Mayweather was given until midnight to sign the contract. The following day, the Top Rank website embedded a countdown clock with the heading "Money Time: Mayweather's Decision".^[20] On July 17, Arum announced that there was no word from Mayweather's camp and a deal for a November 13 fight was not reached. Instead, Pacquiao would fight Antonio Margarito.

Denial of Second Negotiations

On July 19, Mayweather's adviser Leonard Ellerbe denied that negotiations for a fight between Mayweather and Pacquiao had ever taken place. He stated that Arum was not telling the truth, and Pacquiao never agreed to testing until the fight.^[21] In response, Arum revealed that HBO Sports president Ross Greenburg acted as mediator between Mayweather’s handlers and those of Pacquiao’s from Top Rank Promotions.^[22] On July 26 Greenburg stated that he had been negotiating with a representative from each side since May 2, trying to put the fight together, but they were unable to come to an agreement at all (contradicting what Arum and Top Rank had previously said).^[23][24] After the second round of negotiations broke off, Mayweather told the Associated Press that he had fought 60 days ago, was in no rush to fight Pacquiao and was not thinking about boxing at the moment.^[25]

Mayweather had also refused to agree to a 50/50 split of the purse and demanded all promotion of the fight go through his own company Gold Boy Productions as well as control the PPVs money while agreeing to only pay Pacquiao $40 million, even after after he agreed to the requested style of blood testing.^[26]

References