Manny Pacquiao's promoters said his
prospective bout with Floyd Mayweather Jr. was dead late Wednesday
night after a mediation session failed to resolve the fighters'
differences over drug testing, scrapping what was likely to be the
richest fight in boxing history.
The bout was slated for March 13 at the MGM
Grand Garden in Las Vegas, but Top Rank said it couldn't reach an
agreement with Golden Boy Promotions, which represented Mayweather in
the negotiations, after nine hours of mediation Tuesday and more
discussions Wednesday.
Although neither side was allowed to publicly
discuss the specifics of their dispute, Mayweather apparently balked at
a hard-fought compromise in the testing issues first raised by the
former welterweight champion.
"I knew this was going to happen," said a weary Bob Arum, Pacquiao's promoter. "You had to play it out."
Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaefer and Mayweather adviser Leonard Ellerbe didn't immediately return phone messages.
The promoters went into the lengthy mediation
Tuesday to resolve their differences over drug testing for the fight.
Both sides claimed every other detail for the fight had been decided,
but Mayweather had demanded random blood testing in addition to
unlimited urine testing, with Pacquiao balking at the stringent
requests.
The fighters' representatives apparently
thought they had a compromise after the mediation. The promoters were
widely expected to formally announce the bout Wednesday — but
subsequent discussions with Mayweather during the day led Top Rank to
declare the fight canceled.
Arum was left fuming by Mayweather, who fought for Top Rank for several years.
"I've been saying this for years: He's a
psychological coward who doesn't want to fight anybody who has a chance
of beating him," Arum said. "He walked away from a rematch with Oscar
[De La Hoya] that would have paid him a fortune because De La Hoya held
him close in the first fight [in May 2007]."
After stellar pay-per-view numbers from their
previous fights, both Pacquiao and Mayweather likely stood to make more
than $25 million from the welterweight bout. Mayweather returned to the
ring after a 21-month absence in September with a victory over Juan
Manuel Marquez, while Pacquiao (50-3-2, 38 KOs) pounded Miguel Cotto in
November for his 13th straight victory since 2005.
Mayweather (40-0, 25 KOs) initially appeared
eager to fight Pacquiao, widely thought to be the sport's
pound-for-pound champion with his string of dynamic victories during
Mayweather's aborted retirement. Both fighters quickly agreed to the
initial points of a deal, with the fight scheduled for March so it
wouldn't interfere with Pacquiao's run for political office in the
Philippines.
But Schaefer then infuriated Top Rank by
refusing to travel to Dallas for a meeting with Cowboys owner Jerry
Jones, who offered to pay lavishly to hold the fight in his opulent new
stadium. Schaefer's actions, apparently at Mayweather's behest, meant
the fight went to the MGM Grand in Mayweather's adopted hometown with
no real competition.
After Mayweather went public with his
requests for drug testing that went beyond the standards of the Nevada
Athletic Commission, Pacquiao complicated the negotiations by filing a
lawsuit last week alleging Mayweather and most of his camp's key
players defamed him by falsely accusing him of using
performance-enhancing drugs. Those confrontations led to the mediation,
which apparently produced a solution acceptable to everybody — except
Mayweather, according to Arum.
Arum said there's "no chance ever of
salvaging it for March, no chance for it ever to happen." He plans to
propose a mid-March bout with 154-pound champion Yuri Foreman to
Pacquiao, who could become a champion in his eighth weight class.