Bob Arum wasn’t put off with the difficulties he encountered in the fruition stage of making the Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao fight, and the interactions he found distasteful during the making of the massive revenue generator on May 2. Well, he was, but not to the point that he’d be unwilling to be in the same sphere with the Al Haymons and Stephen Espinozas, if a rematch were to planned. I chatted with Arum ahead of his Saturday show at the Madison Square Garden Theater, topped by a Nicholas Walters-Miguel Marriaga featherweight title clash.

“The money was so huge last time and I’m realistic to know it won’t be as big this time,” Arum said, “but it’d be three or four times as big to another fight these guys can do.”

The 83-year-old deal-maker insisted that the fight looked like a draw to him, that the second round and 12^th round were plausible Manny rounds, in addition to the fourth and sixththus, that fight was closer than what many, including myself, thought.

“I had Pacquiao winning seven to five,” he said, insisting he’d watched it again on tape. (I found myself comprehending that I tend to think the work of my 4 year old in art class has me considering her an art prodigy, so I take Arum’s fight-scoring skills in a Manny fight with a grain, or ten, of salt.) So, yes, the promotion was difficult, and he’d expect there’d be more hurdles put up by the same road-block builders.

“You take as many steps as you can to ameliorate (problems and issues and roadblocks), but yeah, there’s nothing you can do,” he told me.

One major issue was the Nevada commission refusing a painkiller shot for Manny’s right shoulder before the fight, with the oversight body insisting they didn’t have enough info on the nature of the injury to sign off on that. There is a perception in some circles that Vegas is Team Floyd, that the moneymaker Mayweather is too important to the casino cash drops a couple times a year for him to be treated with anything other than kids gloves. And if Manny had won, maybe there would exist leverage for Arum to take the circus to Texas this timeÔǪbut the leverage ball is in Floyd’s courtÔǪeven more so this timeÔǪso part of me wonders if he’s even inclined to give the Pacquiao/Top Rank crew another payday. Regarding Pacman’s future, Arum said he will know more when he talks to the Congressman in two weeks. Two days before #MayPac, Arum said to me he foresaw maybe a Manny farewell fight in 2016, in his homeland, against Terence Crawford. But right now, the Brooklyn-born business-man is inclined to think it would make sense for Manny to heal, and book a Floyd rematch right away, not take a rust shedder/interim tangle.

“If the rematch were available, I think we’d go right into a rematch,” he said. Isn’t Floyd supposed to fight in September? Arum thinks he won’t, because he’s quite content to relax and count the money from #MayPac. “Floyd is capable of doing anything, he’s got all the money he could ever use, even with his spending habits, it’s hard to see him going through all that money. If he was smart, I would think he’d look to do a rematch, and then one more,” Arum said. “But his body is breaking down, so maybe he leaves at 49-0.”

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