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Mayweather Jr. insists he’s trying to make fight with Pacquiao

Fighters Network
06
Feb

While providing a photo of himself with Manny Pacquiao during an hour-long, face-to-face meeting on Jan. 27, Floyd Mayweather Jr. claimed, “I set up this meeting with Manny Pacquiao to get this fight done but they will continue to tell the public it’s us and that’s NOT TRUE.”

Mayweather made his latest comments on his Shots account on Thursday, the same day that Pacquiao’s promoter, Top Rank Promotions CEO Bob Arum said HBO and Showtime have agreed on how they would broadcast the May 2 fight and that only two remaining issues need to be settled.

“We had four issues and we resolved two,” said Arum, who declined to name the remaining issues. “Now we’re working on resolving the other two. Unless something else comes up at the last minute, that’s what my take is.”

Despite Arum’s claims, he is not involved in negotiating the agreement between HBO and Showtime, according to the report, in which Arum’s assertions were also disputed as being “premature” by Showtime’s Stephen Espinoza.



“There are a few significant issues remaining on both the fighter side and the network side of this deal,” said Espinoza, Showtime’s sports executive vice president and general manager. “While we are optimistic, it’s a bit premature to say that the networks are in total agreement.”

Mayweather has fought four of six bouts thus far to satisfy a multi-million dollar agreement with Showtime and its parent company, CBS Corporation and HBO televises most of Pacquiao’s bouts. The joint venture the networks are trying to work out is similar to that which produced a fight between Lennox Lewis (HBO) and Mike Tyson (Showtime) in June 2002.

After an earlier report by Yahoo! Sports pointed the finger at HBO for stalling the discussions, that network defended itself.

“We are not an impediment to this fight,” read a statement from HBO, in response. “We stand ready to go. The principals need to agree to terms and come to a deal.”

Meanwhile, Mayweather advised boxing fans to stay tuned.

“While we wait, y’all go TELL A FRIEND to download Shots ASAP,” said Mayweather. “So I can keep you all updated on the Mayweather vs. Pacquiao fight that we are trying to make happen.”

 

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