Mayweather vs Pacquiao in November? "No Way," Says Roach

Speaking to BoxingScene.com's Keith Idec, Hall of Fame trainer Freddie Roach says that he doesn't believe a fight between Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr will happen, throwing a bucket of cold water on anyone who has moved on from the May-based talks and turned their hopes to a late autumn date:

"No way. [Mayweather is] scared. He doesn’t want to take a chance. He wants that zero so bad on his record, so that he can say he’s better than Sugar Ray Robinson and all these great fighters, because he’s never lost. Losing makes you a better fighter. He’s not better than those fighters and he never will be."

This latest batch of negotiations (if you want to call the whole saga a "negotiation" since no one ever really did anything but wail to the media) saw Mayweather leap out to an early PR lead with a "call out" on Twitter, and then Bob Arum dug a small hole for Team Pacquiao with his increasingly odd and defensive position on the matter.

But Mayweather took a hit recently, too, saying that there's no way that he'll take a 50-50 deal with Manny Pacquiao, saying he told Pacquiao on the phone, "That can't happen." Even Teddy Atlas feels that Mayweather looks like he doesn't want the fight now.

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I don't know if anyone's really afraid of anyone. More and more I just think that perhaps everyone involved can't be bothered to go into a negotiation that isn't easy, where they don't get the massive lion's share of the money, where they have to actually negotiate. It's not like either of them has had to do that in a while. Mayweather gets a fight with a Golden Boy guy, it's easy to make. Pacquiao fights a Top Rank guy or a wayward veteran free agent, it's easy to make. This requires actual effort and thought and swallowing of pride and maybe even an ego check.