Floyd Mayweather, Jr. knew exactly what he was doing when he put the idea that he wanted to fight Manny Pacquiao on May 5, 2012 out into the world. First, he was taking attention off Pacquiao vs. Juan Manuel Marquez by reminding people that it wasn't Pacquiao vs. Mayweather. But he was also forcing Manny and Top Rank to address the issue while making it seem like he was the one that actually wanted the fight to happen.
Top Rank's Bob Arum was predictably annoyed and dismissive of Floyd's talk, pointing out that the Mayweather camp had already put feelers out to Erik Morales.
After maybe going a bit overboard in his reaction, Arum seems to be settling down. First, telling Lem Satterfield of The Ring Magazine that they could talk about it after Manny deals with Marquez and even including a willingness to discuss Julio Cesar Chavez, Jr. vs. Saul "Canelo" Alvarez at the same time:
"You know, conversations are never bad. Conversations, that's what adults do," said Arum. "They discuss business and they don't do it through the media. They do it face to face."
... "Both guys, Manny and Chavez, have difficult fights coming up in the next couple of weeks, and if one or both are successful in winning those fights, then I would be very pleased to sit down and talk to Schaefer about those subjects," said Arum. "That's all very good, and I'm in favor of it, and that's all that I've got to say. I'm not going to comment any further."
Of course, there's only so much that Arum is willing to bend as ESPN pointed out:
"It's not a question of him making it difficult. He's making it impossible, because he's not making it," Arum asserted. "I thought to myself: ‘OK, maybe he's got a point, even though I think it's baloney, on this doping/drug test thing.' So Manny and I discussed it, and I said, ‘Manny, even though they can, they're not going to go into the dressing room on the night of the fight to take blood, and if they do, let ‘em take it from your ass, not your arm. So he said, ‘OK, OK, no conditions.' None . And then [Mayweather]'s on [TV] this weekend, saying, ‘I'll fight him, take the test.' What is he saying? And why doesn't the press take him up on it? How many times are we supposed to say that that is not an issue?"
The answer to "how many times?" is "as many as it takes until the fight is done." It doesn't matter if Arum and Manny say they'll take a test three times a day, every day for a year. Floyd has made "take the test" his rallying cry and a portion of the fanbase believes that it is still an issue that Top Rank and Floyd won't buckle on.
Scott Christ of Bad Left Hook adds one more statement to relax anyone who thinks that Marquez is being treated unfairly by any talk of a fight other than his battle with Pacquiao:
And before anyone thinks this is particularly insulting to Marquez, remember that this same situation came up earlier this year, basically, when Pacquiao was preparing to fight Shane Mosley. Information leaked that they'd already been talking about fighting Marquez on November 12, before Manny and Shane were ever in the ring. So it's not particularly insulting, just normal insulting.
Follow our coverage of Pacquiao vs. Marquez 3 here at MMA Nation and at our boxing blog Bad Left Hook.
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