With the 2010 mega fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao uncertain but the talk of boxing, the quotes just keep coming in.
Bob Arum told Larry Fine of Reuters that he fears Mayweather will back out due to the risk of losing the "0" on his record:
"Psychologically he may not be prepared to do this fight," Pacquaio promoter Arum added.
"Now this is me being an amateur psychologist, but Mayweather is so tied up with the fact that nobody has beaten him, that he has a zero on his record, I don't know if he would be willing to go into the ring with anybody that could jeopardize that zero."
This isn't the first time Arum has said something like this, and he wasn't done on the matter there, either.
"He is afraid, terrified of losing that zero," said Arum, possibly in an effort to goad Mayweather into making the match.
"That's why he's ducked (Shane) Mosely, (Antonio) Margarito and Cotto, and the question is will he duck Manny Pacquiao because he's so afraid of losing that zero."
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Manny Pacquiao himself is now playing a Floyd-like game. He told the Inquirer that Floyd should challenge him, not the other way around, as Mayweather has been saying:
"We are not pushing the fight. He should be the first to challenge me; after all, I got a higher pay-per-view from my fight," Pacquiao said.
Since I find it so catty and juvenile that Floyd needs Manny to ask him to the prom, I'll say the same thing for Manny's side. Just cut the crap. Without each other, the fighters make significantly less money. They both know it. They're playing some sort of weird little high school game with this. "All he has to do is challenge me." "No he should challenge me!" If we wait for that to play out, we'll be here until the reign of Queen Dick.
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From the Mayweather side, Leonard Ellerbe spoke with Lance Pugmire of the Los Angeles Times, and said they definitely have a backup plan should negotiations with Pacquiao and Top Rank prove fruitless.
"If the fight can't be made, we'll fight Shane Mosley if he can get past Berto."
Sort of makes you wonder what's changed and made Mosley so much more attractive.