For failing to fight Filipino boxing icon Manny Pacquiao for the second time, Floyd Mayweather Jr. is drawing flak from some influential boxing commentators and sportsmen. Yahoo! Sports senior writer and columnist Kevin Iole accused Mayweather of “ducking Manny Pacquiao” and suggested this move may have forever tarnished his legacy as one of the best boxers of all time.
Iole, who several weeks ago voted Mayweather as the new pound-for-pound best in the world after his dominant win over World Boxing Association welterweight champ Shane Mosley, said Mayweather and his team are courting the ire of boxing fans for avoiding a showdown with Pacquiao, now the congressional representative of Sarangani province in southern Mindanao.
“Mayweather has run from his biggest challenge. The fans, even those who have ardently supported him through the years, will surely remember that,” he wrote in his latest commentary posted prominently in the popular website.
Best-selling author and Fox Sports national columnist Mark Kriegel pointedly said that Mayweather is wasting the time of boxing fans and the media and accused Mayweather of killing what would have been the biggest fight in boxing history.
“There were five guys involved [in making the fight]. Four of them—Pacquiao, [Pacquiao’s promoter Bob] Arum, [Mayweather’s adviser Al] Haymon and [HBO Sports president Ross] Greenburg—worked hard to make it happen,” Kriegel noted. “The fifth guy [Mayweather] killed it.”
UFC boss
Dana White, the president of Ultimate Fighting Championships (UFC), blamed Mayweather squarely for his failure to fight Pacquiao, the reigning best boxer in the world pound-for-pound.
“It’s Floyd Mayweather’s fault,” White was quoted by Kriegel. “You’re supposed to be a professional.”
The UFC boss said that Mayweather should prove his oft-repeated claim that he is the best in the world by stepping up to the challenge and fight Pacquiao.
To back this claim up, he added that Mayweather “should take on the best until you retire, cement your place in history.”
“For denying them this fight, boxing fans should never buy another Floyd Mayweather fight as long as they live,” said a visibly irate White.
What further incurred the ire of fans and the media is the claim of Team Mayweather that there were no negotiations for a planned November fight between the acknowledged best fighters in the world.
“No negotiations have ever taken place,” Mayweather’s best friend and adviser Leonard Ellerbe said. “. . . Either Ross Greenburg or Bob Arum is not telling the truth, but history tells us who is lying.”
This statement was clearly in response to Arum’s July 16 conference call announcing the projected November 13 Pacquiao-Mayweather showdown was off. Arum and Pacquaio had set a July 16 deadline for Mayweather to decide on a November 13 fight, the terms of which have been approved by Pacquiao and submitted to Mayweather for his approval.
According to Iole, Team Mayweather has lost its credibility by insinuating that there had been no negotiations for Pacquiao-Mayweather in November, an assertion that was later belied in a carefully worded press statement by Greenburg.
“I had been negotiating with a representative from each side,” said Greenburg, “ . . . carefully trying to put the fight together.”
Iole suggested that Mayweather could alienate even his own fans for his failure to take the fight that people are clamoring for.
“How can anyone support someone with Mayweather’s arrogance, who cares so little about the fans who made him rich beyond his wildest dreams that he won’t even consider the fight they want more than any other?” the popular Yahoo! boxing columnist asked.
