Arum: Mayweather Rejects $65 million Offer to Fight Pacquiao

MANILA, Philippines (June 4 2011) – Floyd Mayweather Jr. clearly doesn’t want any part of Manny Pacquiao, as far as Hall of Fame promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank Inc is concerned.

According to Arum, the brash Mayweather, who has been inactive for more than a year now, once again refused another offer to fight the Filipino ring icon.

The proposed fight purse: A staggering $65 million.

"I'm an optimist, and I always felt that they'd eventually fight. At this point, I really feel that they'd never fight,” Arum told Elie Seckback in a video interview released by ESNEWS yesterday.

Arum narrated how the fight offer reached Mayweather.

“Recently, as recent as this week, legitimate people from Singapore offered Mayweather $65 million to fight Manny Pacquiao and he turned it down,” said the promoter, who did not name those who initiated the said deal.

“$65 million is obviously a sum Manny Pacquiao would accept. So what does that tell you? It tells you he (Mayweather) doesn’t want to fight Manny Pacquiao," he added.

Mayweather, who hasn’t stepped in the ring since outpointing Shane Mosley in May last year, has successfully found ways to prevent a Mayweather-Pacquiao fight – expected to be the richest in boxing history – from happening.

There was his demand for Olympic-style drug testing, which Pacquiao initially refused but eventually accepted. The fight, however, still never came to fruition.

Then, when Pacquiao was training in Baguio City for the Mosley fight, news came out about Mayweather’s demand for a $100 million dollar purse to face the Filipino – an amount Arum described as “ridiculous.”

This time, with Mayweather rejecting another offer, Arum concluded that the undefeated boxer does not want to share the ring with Pacquiao.

"He doesn’t want to fight Manny. He's smart not to fight Manny because, truth be told, everyone who knows boxing know that Manny will beat him," he said.

And why?

"One thing about Floyd: Floyd knows boxing, and Floyd knows style. That's why Floyd was always reticent about fighting a southpaw. And a southpaw like Manny Pacquiao, he doesn't want no part of, because even if he protects himself from his left, he's going to bang him with his right hand," Arum continued.

Arum may have a point. Mayweather has had trouble fighting a southpaw, as evidenced by his welterweight showdown with Zab Judah in 2006. In that fight, Mayweather struggled in the first six rounds, thanks to Judah’s quick blows and southpaw stance, until he took control in the bout’s second half to earn a unanimous decision win.

Against a faster Pacquiao, Mayweather may be in trouble once more.